Fighting ProliferationChapter 4
This essay explores the net change in the military capability of the United States that is likely to occur over the next 25 years or so. To get a handle on such a change, we need to look at the types of weapons likely to be available to the US and possible enemies. Just as importantly, we need to look at the disparity between the missions of the US military and those of other countries’ militaries. The danger to the US is not that we will face a peer competitor in the foreseeable future, but that we will face regional powers that are able to keep our military from projecting power into their regions. A key question is whether the technological, organizational, and financial superiority of the US military will translate into a continued ability to carry out its primary mission, which is intervening easily, far from our homeland and close to the homeland of our enemies. The thesis of this essay is that technological changes over the next 25 years or so will tend to make strategic offense (that is, power projection) more difficult and regional defense easier.1
Concerns about dangers that would arise if a rogue state were to get nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction are the main drivers of most US nonproliferation policy. In addition to the almost unthinkable threat of a madman blowing up US cities, the US military has much to fear from less apocalyptic threats of a local power that threatens to use nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) weapons solely against military targets.2 Regional powers’ possession of these weapons changes the calculus of both the US and its opponents to such an extent that predicting how anyone would act becomes impossible. We just do not know whether Iraq’s possession of nuclear weapons would have increased or decreased the likelihood of US intervention to protect Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. We do know, however, that the war would have been much more serious because it would have threatened the existence of some US cities and because US forces in the region would have been vulnerable to nuclear destruction. This essay does not seek to join the argument about the unknowable question of whether US threats of retaliation or escalation will succeed in deterring local powers from using weapons of mass destruction.3
It does argue, however, that the proliferation of a coming generation of weapons of precise destruction among regional powers may well prevent the US military from accomplishing its primary strategic goal—projecting power globally. These precise conventional weapons may be able to destroy US power-projection forces with the same military effectiveness as nuclear weapons, but any US threats to retaliate with nuclear weapons in response to such a conventional attack would be absolutely implausible. The key point is that the US will also find it very hard to solve this problem by responding with its own precise weapons. US bases and platforms are likely to be more vulnerable to precision weapons than are regional powers operating in their own region. US forces in a region will be asymmetrically vulnerable because a well-prepared regional power can hide and disperse its forces. But effectively hiding and dispersing the bases and other paraphernalia of a major US power-projection force is almost inconceivable.
The US military has two great advantages over all other militaries in the world: money and organizational capability. The US spends eight to 10 times as much on the military as does its nearest competitor. Furthermore, it has a higher defense budget than the entire gross national products of many rogue states we see as our most likely enemies.4 Though less tangible, the organizational capability of the US military must seem equally imposing to any state thinking of challenging the US. That capability allows the US to operate and maintain air and naval forces that even European countries can only palely imitate. Further, it allows the US to provide logistics support for large forces around the world and to carry out large, complicated, joint-force operations that no one else can even think of matching. Other US advantages in technology, training, strategic and operational thought, and alliance support flow from advantages in money and organizational capability. Thus, even after reductions in military spending that followed the cold war, US military capability certainly seems sufficient, at least at first glance, to justify bestowing the title of “sole superpower” on the United States.
Such status, however, does not mean that the US can look forward to a future of easy military dominance. Two factors contribute to this problem: (1) the key to US grand strategy is the capability to project power easily and (2) some types of weapons systems (precision-guided conventional munitions as well as nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons) are much cheaper and require less organizational skill to use than the expensive, complicated platforms upon which the US depends. The US must have major platforms and bases in order to move and operate its forces around the world. But a regional power, operating on or near its own territory, might create a force consisting of a system of dispersed precision-guided weapons that could make US logistics assets and operating bases very vulnerable.
Whether this problem becomes so serious that it stops the US from intervening in an area important to us obviously depends on choices about the number and type of weapons systems bought by the US and by potential rivals. The usual goal of antiproliferation efforts is to stop bad guys from getting apocalyptic weapons of mass destruction. Clearly, this goal gets the most attention because such weapons in the hands of an evil or irrational dictator or terrorist could destroy US cities. However, the availability of advanced conventional weapons on the international arms market, though much less apocalyptic, could have a profound effect on the US position in the world.
This argument rests on five propositions:
Proposition 1. US grand strategy in the post-cold-war period is based on the assumption that we will have the military capability to project power easily in much of the world.
Proposition 2. In foreseeable future wars, the US military’s ability to project power will depend on a rather small number of bases (primarily air bases and seaports) and major weapons platforms.
Proposition 3. Bases and major weapons platforms are increasingly vulnerable to highly accurate, advanced conventional weapons.
Proposition 4. A regional power, fighting near its own territory, will be able to disperse its forces and become less dependent on bases and major platforms than an outside nation trying to project power into the region.
Proposition 5. Advanced conventional weapons and the technology needed to produce them are available on the world market and will be widely available to regional powers in the near future.
The conclusion from this set of propositions is that precise, conventional weapons will spread to regional powers that could use them to thwart the US from projecting power. Thus, instead of a future in which the US is a sole superpower with worldwide interests and military capability, we could move to a future in which the world is split into regions dominated by local hegemons. Far from being to the long-term advantage of the US, the revolution in military affairs (RMA) that follows from the development of precise weapons, powerful sensors, and nearly ubiquitous communications could shift the military balance to regional powers. The centuries-long dominance of Western European and American offense over third world defense could come to an end. Of course, the competition between offense and defense will continue, and the US may well be able to bring its many advantages to bear against some regional powers in the future. However, the long-term trends in technology appear to work against the US.
What is the United States to do about this? Extensions of nonproliferation efforts such as treaties and export controls might be useful, and the US probably should pursue them as long as we do not rely on them to solve the problem. Much more fundamental changes in the US military will be required. If the US is to prevent a slow collapse of its grand strategy, the military needs to start thinking about restructuring itself so that power-projection assets are not so vulnerable to destruction by precise weapons. This means that all decisions about weapons systems, force structure, and base structure must be made with an eye toward their vulnerability to interdiction by precise conventional weapons. The US military must stop assuming that its major platforms and bases will be secure and thus needs to implement serious changes in its weapons systems and war plans.
Proposition 1: US Grand Strategy in the Post-Cold-War Period Is Based on the Assumption That We Will Have the Military Capability to Project Power Easily in Much of the World
Big turning points in history occur when one country or civilization becomes able to project power against others fairly easily. Much of the history of the Eurasian continent for 1,000 years (roughly A.D. 400 to A.D. 1400) was driven by the fact that nomadic horse peoples developed power-projection capability against more settled civilizations. The history of the last 500 years has been driven by the fact that Western Europeans (primarily the British, French, Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish) suddenly developed a hitherto unprecedented ability to dominate militarily peoples and militaries very far from the Western European homeland. The Gulf War is the latest example of the capability of Western countries to project power into distant corners of the world. US national strategy assumes that the United States will continue to be able to do so. We will be living through a major historical change if, as this essay argues, technological change gives non-European states the capability to stop Americans/Europeans from projecting power into the so-called third world.
A big debate going on now concerns whether the technological changes we have seen over the last 25 years or so—and are likely to see in the near future—amount to a revolution in military affairs. Not to quibble over definitions, but many changes in the past might be called military revolutions. The development of machine guns changed the way successful armies fought, and the development of the tank changed it again. In both cases, the changes could have been—and to a great extent were—incorporated into the militaries of all the major European antagonists. These events were largely revolutions in military organization and in tactics, but they did not demand fundamental changes in the strategic balance or in the nature of the societies of the major powers. On the other hand, the really important RMAs fundamentally change the military balance between different types of civilizations. Big changes in history occur when the world’s major power loses its fundamental ability to project power or when a new power capable of projecting power arises.5
Conventional weapons of the last century or so have been most useful to rich, well-organized, industrialized countries. On the other hand, precise conventional munitions can be purchased and used by third world countries. Paradoxically, new weapons that require high technology for their design and production give less premium to organization, affluence, or technological/industrial capability in their use.
The lessons that the public and, I fear, much of the military learned from the Gulf War were very unfortunate. We saw a very well trained, very technologically sophisticated US military that made power projection look easy. However, war against a well-prepared regional power is unlikely to be easy for the US in the future. The spread of high-precision conventional weapons—not to mention nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons of mass destruction—will make very difficult the task of getting US forces to a region and keeping them alive and operational once they are there.
No direct comparison of the US military with any competitor is meaningful without understanding the extraordinary contrast between the mission of the US military and that of any other country’s military. The Clinton administration’s strategy, like that of every other administration since World War II, assigns the military the task of being prepared to intervene—to project power—into regions of the world very remote from the US. The primary mission of the US military is, in a strategic sense, extremely offensive. Yet, foreseeable technological changes over the next 25 years are likely to make offensive military action much more difficult—so difficult that the US may well decide that the grand strategy devised by both the Bush and Clinton administrations will not be worthwhile.
These administrations have propounded very similar grand strategies with extremely ambitious agendas for transforming the world. Basically, they see three major tasks in American foreign policy: (1) promoting the transformation of as many countries as possible to democracy and capitalism, (2) intervening diplomatically and, if need be, militarily to stop regional conflicts from getting out of hand, and (3) punishing and containing rogue states such as Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and Libya.
Of course, official US documents on strategy are so voluminous and vague that pinning down any hard choices about strategic direction is difficult. Still, several statements from US leaders illustrate the general thrust of current US national security strategy:
Our forces must be able to help offset the military power of regional states with interests opposed to those of the United States and its allies. To do this, we must be able to credibly deter and defeat aggression, by projecting and sustaining U.S. power in more than one region if necessary. (Emphasis added)—President William J. Clinton.6
I start with this fundamental fact: The United States will remain a global power. . . . Protecting our interests requires us to have security commitments around the world—Secretary of Defense William Perry.7
Accomplishing the specific tasks of the strategy is facilitated by the two complementary strategic concepts of overseas presence and power projection. (Emphasis in original)—Gen John Shalikashvili.8
The primary responsibility of America’s military is to deter potential adversaries or fight and win wars decisively. To improve the way we do business, we must consider this core responsibility in terms of how America’s military forces actually project power. At the foundation of this approach is power projection. (Emphasis added)—Gen Ronald R. Fogleman and Secretary of the Air Force Sheila E. Widnall.9
The Clinton administration stresses the need for allies and international organizations to help with these tasks. Super- ficially, this approach looks like the Nixon doctrine, which sought to create regional allies of the US that could, in effect, manage the region for us. For example, the US considered Iran its dominant ally in the Persian Gulf area. The logical problem with this strategy is that it would have created regional hegemons that would not be indefinitely beholden to the US. The effect of our current strategy is very different. In contrast to supporting a regional hegemon, we are now attempting to create a balance of power by supporting naturally weak states against potential regional hegemons. Saudi Arabia thus seems to be a nearly perfect ally: it can supply both land and money for US forces in the region but is too weak to dream of being a regional hegemon and too lucrative a target to risk doing without US support. In East Asia, our strategy seems to be drifting toward putting together a coalition of (relatively) small states to prevent China from becoming a regional hegemon. In both East Asia and the Middle East, our allies appear too weak to defend themselves against a regional hegemon without massive US power-projection capability.
The fact is that the goals of spreading democracy, dampening regional conflict, and even containing rogue states are relevant to the US primarily in a very long term and tangential way. To be acceptable to the US people, these goals have to be accomplished fairly easily. The Gulf War set the standard: wars for these goals have to be won quickly, with little loss of American life and no excessive loss of enemy civilian or even military life. In other words, the US must not only be dominant but almost effortlessly dominant.
In a very fundamental sense, the US military is gearing up to be a global policeman. Primarily, policemen break up quarrels and catch bad guys. After they catch the culprit, we expect them to be overwhelmingly dominant in terms of force. Policemen should run no risk of losing a battle with a criminal. Because our grand strategy depends on projecting power easily, it is misleading to say that the US can defeat any country on earth if it is willing to pay the price. The US expects to be able to project power around the world with little loss of life and minimal stress on the polity or the nation. As more countries become able to attack US bases and weapons platforms, the US will increasingly find that interests previously judged vital will no longer warrant intervention. Thus, other countries may well defeat US grand strategy without actual combat.
Proposition 2: In Foreseeable Future Wars, the US Military’s Ability to Project Power Will Depend on a Rather Small Number of Bases and Major Weapons Platforms
Even with the most advanced sensors and precision-guided weapons, finding and killing large, fixed bases will remain much easier than doing the same to dispersed, mobile weapons systems. The US relies—and will continue to rely—on a few large, fixed bases in any theater into which it tries to project power. On the other hand, new precision-guidance technologies give regional powers the opportunity to create military forces that can hide and disperse on their own territory.
The general assumption behind the RMA is that we are moving to a world in which “if we can see it, we can kill it.” The US is in trouble if regional enemies develop this capability because any power-projection effort will rely on a small number of bases that the enemy can see. The general trend of technology does not favor the survivability of large, visible, relatively fixed assets. On the other hand, a prepared enemy operating on or near his own territory can disperse assets, set decoys to confuse our sensors, and distribute supplies long in advance. Thus, the US task of power projection is inherently much more difficult than the task of a regional defender.
Of course, a wealth of literature analyzes the vulnerability of military assets—air bases, carriers, tank columns, logistics nodes, and so forth. Furthermore, the US military has put some thought into reducing the vulnerability of these high-value assets by passive and active means. Attackers and defenders will continue to make technological advances, and it is impossible to predict in any detail how and when that competition will work out. But the general trend of technology is to make large formations, weapons systems, and bases vulnerable.
The US is not making long-term plans that will solve this problem. For example, despite all these vulnerabilities, the assumption guiding US planning is that its logistics system will remain immune from attack. The Congressionally Mandated Mobility Study of 1980, which still is the basis for most defense logistics planning, explicitly assumed that one could plan deployment to a theater as if it were a peacetime shipping operation:
The study would consider conventional conflicts only; neither nuclear nor chemical warfare would be examined. The effects of the denial of access to seaports and airfields, or their closure, were not evaluated; seaports and airfields were assumed to be open and accessible. Petroleum products, oil and lubricants were assumed to be available as needed; bases en route to theaters of combat were assumed to be open, accessible, and hospitable. No detailed analysis would be made of port reception capabilities or in-theater transportation capabilities; after men and materiel arrived at a port, sufficient unloading facilities and transportation to their final destinations were assumed to exist. (Emphasis added)10
Perhaps the US can work out ways to make its bases and logistics train less vulnerable. But this will not happen if we continue to plan deployments under assumptions more appropriate to Federal Express.
It is conceivable, though not likely, that the US might develop power-projection capability that does not involve putting major forces on the ground in the area. Many people have speculated about the strategic effect of strikes from B-2s or from some kind of futuristic space weapon.11 Similarly, naval forces could launch air strikes or cruise missile strikes. We cannot settle here the debate about the military decisiveness of such limited air strikes, but clearly the number of targets we can destroy with such forces is much smaller than the number destroyed by a massive air campaign carried out by land-based planes in-theater, as in Operation Desert Storm. It is also hard to see how such a limited air campaign can be decisive without army troops to finish the war. In any case, current US military planning certainly envisions any power projection as involving the moving of major US forces into the region. The National Military Strategy of 1995 says that
this power projection could ultimately entail the transport of large numbers of personnel and their equipment. Such an effort requires detailed plans to provide the necessary intelligence, logistics, and communications support, as well as capabilities to protect our forces during deployment. We continue to build on the lessons learned in Operation Desert Storm to strengthen our power projection capabilities.12
Some people see stealth as a trump card that allows US airplanes (and, conceivably, ships) to go anywhere, anytime, with impunity. The problem is that this conclusion is tactical rather than strategic. Even if the US remains far ahead in stealth technology and even if no one develops effective defensive countermeasures, the bases that stealth fighter planes (F-117s and F-22s) operate from will still be susceptible to disruption or destruction—as will their logistics support system. The bottom line is that the US needs a radical rethinking of its force structure if its power-projection grand strategy is to remain viable in the future.
Proposition 3: Bases and Major Weapons Platforms Are Increasingly Vulnerable to Highly Accurate, Advanced Conventional Weapons
Who gains from the RMA? Will the continuing development of precision weapons and new sensor and communications capabilities usually discussed under the rubric of “the RMA” increase US power-projection capability? Or will the proliferation of weapons around the world reduce the strategic offensive capability of the US? Does the US gain a net advantage from the RMA, or do regional powers trying to stop the US from projecting power gain net capability?
The term revolution in military affairs is significant, having been deliberately changed from Marshall Ogarkov’s term military-technical revolution.13 US proponents of the RMA do not view it merely as a change in military technology, tactics, or operational art. They see it as a real revolution in the whole nature of warfare. The dream is that an integrated system of precision weapons and intelligence will allow the US to project power very easily—meaning that casualties will be low and there will be no uncertainty about the outcome. Thus, military power projection can be used as an instrument of foreign policy without risking much of the messiness of past wars.
Little in the RMA literature recognizes that the very technological changes that are the basis for enthusiasm about the RMA—highly precise weapons and very good sensors and communications systems—may be more conducive to denying US power-projection capability than making power projection an easy police action. One major theme of this literature is that new technology will eliminate the fog of war.14 The hope is that war will become more like a police SWAT-team operation—highly coordinated and leaving no doubt about the ultimate victor. The Gulf War, in retrospect, looks like just such a conflict. War is sometimes defined as “a contest employing violent force.”15 The dream behind the RMA is that the US can develop such a far superior force that future US wars become “no contest”—devoid of the uncertainties and violence inherent in past wars. For example, the official US Air Force strategy document notes that
we are now reaping the benefits of high payoff investments in a truly revolutionary set of technologies. Investment in these advanced technolgies will provide the United States forces decisive capabilities against potentially well-equipped foes at a minimum cost in casualties.16
A closer look at the kinds of forces needed to make an RMA work gives us much more reason to fear for the long-term viability of this dream. A RAND study of the future of the RMA makes the following speculation:
Suppose that war looked like this: Small numbers of light, highly mobile forces defeat and compel the surrender of large masses of heavily armed, dug-in enemy forces with little loss of life on either side. The mobile forces can do this because they are well prepared, make room for maneuver, concentrate their firepower rapidly in unexpected places, and have superior command, control, and information systems that are decentralized to allow tactical initiatives, yet provide central commanders with unparalleled intelligence and “topsight” for strategic purposes.17
This vision entails a number of problems. Even these “highly mobile” forces depend on highly immobile bases in-theater. Furthermore, the US is investing only a small portion of its defense budget on forces that are light and highly mobile. Our precision weapons tend to be based on platforms that either have large signatures or require much support.
It is also unwise to assume that the US will again face large masses of dug-in, heavily armored forces. Will the next enemy be stupid enough to repeat Saddam Hussein’s strategy and force structure? A smart enemy would purchase, on the world arms market, lots of missiles and other munitions that he could fire at large US bases and platforms. The Gulf War was lopsided precisely because the US had an extreme asymmetric advantage, both in precision weapons and in information. We cannot count on being so lucky next time.
Technological trends can tell us something about whether we can realize the RMA dream. None of the technologies we are developing really gives us the capability to insert decisive force halfway around the world without large bases and platforms in the region. But these bases are very likely to be vulnerable in the future.
Traditional wisdom maintains that air bases are very hard to close. For example, even if attacking forces used ballistic missiles with good 1980s-level accuracy (50-meter circular error of probability [CEP]) and optimized runway-cratering munitions, they would need 15 to 48 missiles to close a single air base.18 Civil engineers could make the base operational again in less than a day. However, one of the tenets of the RMA is that accuracy will continue to increase. With the five-meter CEP missiles that are likely to spread around the world, closing a runway might be possible with three to five missiles—fewer if the attacker can target fuel or repair facilities.
Similarly, most people view US aircraft carrier task forces, especially after the deployment of the Aegis cruiser, as invulnerable. However, the performance of the Exocet missile in the Falklands War in 1982 is a small foreshadowing of the threats to those carriers, especially if they are near the enemy shore. Even worse, missile and other threats increase as carrier task forces move into waters near a country against which the US is trying to project power. Vice Adm James Owens has written that if Iraq had managed to acquire six (diesel) submarines, those vessels “could have made a significant difference in the Persian Gulf War.”19 It is surely no coincidence that Iran and China have been making significant investments in small diesel submarines designed to keep US carriers out of their coastal waters.
Further, the US logistics train includes a host of tempting targets. The two available Persian Gulf points of debarkation would have been destroyed by an enemy only slightly more capable than Iraq. Because enemies can easily see transport air base and materiel prepositioning sites, these places will be vulnerable in the future.
In addition to the vulnerability of US bases and logistics, tactical and operational changes the US military is making to take advantage of the RMA may actually make US forces more vulnerable. The very sophistication of the US logistics system may well add to its vulnerability. For example, computer hackers might be able to destroy the highly coordinated logistics plans the US uses to keep track of its shipments.20
The US military is now making its war-fighting plans and carrying out its training on the assumption that a very complex command, control, communications, and intelligence (C3I) system will be available. However, some sensors and communications nodes might be very vulnerable to destruction. For example, airborne warning and control system (AWACS) and joint surveillance target attack radar system (JSTARS) aircraft are the primary sensors the US plans to use to keep track of enemy aircraft and ground-force movement. But both of these large Boeing passenger planes might be vulnerable to destruction by an enemy with precision-guided weapons. Similarly, satellite communications might be vulnerable to saboteurs who could destroy the very limited number of US ground stations.
What would happen to the US military if it plans and trains on the assumption that these sensors and communications systems will be available, and suddenly they are not? A military that believes in “fight the way you train” would be unable to do so. The fog of war would be back with a vengeance. The US has long prided itself—and has contrasted its forces with those of the Soviets—on the fact that its units have the initiative to operate autonomously. Is that still the case? Seemingly, the US has come to pride itself on the ability to carry out extremely complicated maneuvers and air tasking orders. Does this leave the US vulnerable to surprise? A smart enemy may well be able to attack and disrupt the nervous system of the high-tech, RMA-style US military.
Proposition 4: A Regional Power, Fighting Near Its Own Territory, Will Be Able to Disperse Its Forces and Become Less Dependent on Bases and Major Platforms than an Outside Nation Trying to Project Power into the Region
Suppose you were a military planner for a country that might eventually want to challenge US superiority. How would you develop a competitive strategy? You would not seek to build an air force or blue-water navy. Maintaining a fleet of modern fighter aircraft is beyond the finances and organizational capability of most countries. Even China, Russia, Japan, or a major Western European country can hardly think of building an air force with sufficient size, organizational capability, or technology to challenge the US Air Force. Similarly, no other country could hope to deploy a navy in any way comparable to the US Navy. The US advantage on the ground is less dramatic, but no other nation can match the integrated combined-arms capability of the US Army and Marine Corps. The key to developing a strategy to defeat the US is to develop a military based on weapons that are relatively cheap, that do not require a large infrastructure to maintain or operate, but that nevertheless threaten the ability of the US to project power.
The completely unsuccessful US hunt for Iraqi Scud missiles serves as a warning about the difficulty of finding weapons systems dispersed in an enemy’s own territory. In this case, the US was hunting large weapons systems hidden by a minimally prepared and minimally sophisticated enemy. A future enemy will have a long time to prepare spoofs and decoys to make harder the already difficult job of US sensors. Units of smart weapons can operate almost autonomously for long periods, so interdicting their logistics chain will prove unsuccessful. In short, little basis seems to exist for the dream that US systems will be able to find and kill enemy targets easily.
Proposition 5: Advanced Conventional Weapons and the Technology Needed to Make Them Are Available on the World Market and Can Be Expected to Be Widely Available to Regional Powers in the Near Future
Attempts to stop the sale of weapons, particularly conventional weapons, have been remarkably unsuccessful. At the end of the cold war, one might have thought that the end of the political-military competition between the US and the Soviet Union would have facilitated international agreements to stop the flow of weapons systems. To the contrary, competition among desperate defense companies in the US, Europe, and Russia has made it even harder to place restrictions on weapons sales.
Changes in US criteria for allowing a company to export a weapons system show the openness of the world arms market. The Carter administration mandated that “the United States will only permit arms sales on the basis of policy decisions first made by the Department of State, rather than in reaction to requests from defense manufacturers.”21 The Reagan administration encouraged more arms sales than the Carter administration, but strategic concerns still determined whether particular deals should proceed. On the other hand, the Clinton administration formally changed arms-export review procedures to account officially for their effect on the defense industry. Secretary of State Warren Christopher argued, “Where nations are buying conventional arms and they are responsible buyers . . . we should not see that market fall into the hands of our European or Asian competitors.”22 Certainly, foreign defense manufacturers will not show more restraint than the US.
Furthermore, there is little hope of stopping the spread of near-cutting-edge technology for very long. The Office of Naval Intelligence warns that “the overall technical threat and lethality of the arms being sold has never been higher. [Extremely advanced weapons] are being advertised or exported with seemingly little consideration for their effects on regional political-military balances.”23
Major weapons platforms (particularly aircraft) give the supplier country some leverage over the recipient. These platforms require many replacement parts, regular mainte- nance, and frequent software updates. For example, Iran has had a hard time using the aircraft that the US sold the Shah in the 1970s. Unfortunately, the kinds of smart missiles and munitions that may endanger US assets in the future are hard to keep track of and give the supplier little leverage—take for example the Stinger missiles that the US supplied the Afghan rebels.
Secretary of Defense William Perry stresses the fact that civilian and military technology are much more highly related than they were in the past. In many technologies crucial to the RMA, civilian technology is ahead of military technology. This means that the US is very unlikely to maintain a monopoly in RMA technology.
Martin van Creveld argues that the shift to low-intensity war is reducing the power of the state relative to nonstate groups. He argues that shifts in technology created the modern nation-state by giving central authorities the capability to overcome the defenses of the local lords. Similarly, he argues that current changes in technology are changing the military balance so that nonstate actors will be able to challenge the state with increasing effectiveness.24 This essay has argued that van Creveld takes his argument a step too far.
It is hard to see how nonstate actors can do more than cause pinprick damage against determined states. Terrorism and regional insurgencies impose high costs on a society and certainly do force states to transform themselves—often into harsher, less liberal governments. But such low-intensity threats are very seldom a real threat to the survival of the state. Even such relatively weak states as El Salvador and Peru were able to organize themselves to overcome guerrilla groups. Guerrillas have not been able to maintain, operate, and develop strategy for new precision-guided weapons. The sole counterexample is the Afghan guerrilla use of Stinger missiles against Soviet helicopters. Even in this special case, the guerrillas had significant outside help, the Afghan communist state was so weak as to hardly have been a state at all, and, furthermore, the effectiveness of the Stingers has probably been exagerrated.
On the other hand, new technology is shifting power to regional states, away from the US and the traditional major powers of Europe. The main problem addressed here is that regional states can use much of the technology now available or on the horizon to eliminate US advantages in airpower and in training and organization. Cruise and ballistic missiles require much less manufacturing prowess and less well trained troops than are needed to manufacture, maintain, or operate airplanes, but these missiles might be a significant threat to the air bases and carriers upon which US forces depend. The technological revolution that has made US weapons accurate and that has given us the information needed to target them may reduce the tonnage of bombs needed. On net, however, the revolution shows no signs of obviating US dependence on a few fixed air bases, ports, and carriers located close to the battlefield. The US must also contend with the danger that its forces will become so dependent upon air supremacy and information supremacy (not just superiority) that they will not be trained to operate with anything less.
No clear solution exists for any of these problems. A crucial first step entails realizing both the difficulty of maintaining US dominance around the world and the vulnerability of our power-projection forces. This realization should become the prime driver for our procurement and force-structure decisions over the coming decades. The US needs to make a large investment and spend much time thinking about its own vulnerabilities if it wishes to create a military capable of attacking a smart enemy in his own homeland and surviving while doing so. If the US decides not to change proposition 1—the view that US military strategy is based on easy power projection—then it will have to find some way to alter at least one of the other four propositions. US force structure and operational plans should be designed to make bases and platforms less vulnerable, disperse US forces away from those bases, and try to stop the proliferation of advanced conventional munitions around the world. None of these goals will be easy to achieve, but if the US has any hope of maintaining a power-projection strategy, its military must begin to orient itself to take these goals very seriously.
1. An interesting body of literature addresses the consequences of nonapocalyptic proliferation. See Henry D. Sokolski, “Nonapocalyptic Proliferation: A New Strategic Threat?” Washington Quarterly, Spring 1994, 115–27; Patrick Garrity, “Implications of the Persian Gulf War for Regional Powers,” Washington Quarterly, Summer 1993, 153–70; John Arquilla, “The Strategic Implications of Information Dominance,” Strategic Review 22, no. 3 (Summer 1994): 24–30; and Robert G. Spulak, “Strategic Sufficiency and Long-Range Precision Weapons,” Strategic Review 22, no. 3 (Summer 1994): 31–39.
2. Despite Herman Kahn’s attempt to get us to “think about the unthinkable,” little agreement exists in either military or academic circles about what the US would do in a limited nuclear war. The usual conclusion is Tom Schelling’s argument that a bluff to destroy civilization would be enough to deter an adversary even if he knew that the probability of making good on the bluff was very tiny. It is very hard to imagine that these escalatory threats would deter regional hegemons who are using purely conventional weapons against US military forces.
3. Obviously, the literature on deterrence and limited nuclear war is huge. A good summary is Lawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy (New York: St. Martin’s, 1983). In the Gulf War, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney explored the use of nuclear weapons to stop Iraqi tank formations. See “Cheney Discussed Nuke Use in Gulf,” Washington Times, 10 September 1995, 4.
4. The best source on defense budgets remains the annual editions of the SIPRI Yearbook (Stockholm: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute). Measures of relative defense budgets vary in accordance with fluctuations in the exchange rate. For example, at 1996 exchange rates, France or Britain spends about 40 billion US dollars per year on defense. At 1985 rates, they spend about $25 billion per year. The statement that the US spends eight to 10 times as much as they do attempts to give a real number adjusted for purchasing-power parity.
5. See Samuel P. Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs, Summer 1993, 22–49.
6. William J. Clinton, A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement (Washington, D.C.: The White House, July 1994).
7. Secretary of Defense William J. Perry, quoted in Harry Summers, “Military Signs and Portents,” Washington Times, 5 January 1995, 17.
8. Gen John M. Shalikashvili, National Military Strategy of the United States (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1995), i.
9. Gen Ronald R. Fogleman and Secretary of the Air Force Sheila E. Widnall, Global Presence (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Air Force, 1995), 1.
10. Schuyler Houser, “The Congressionally Mandated Mobility Study,” Case Program C16-87-789.0 (Cambridge, Mass.: Kennedy School of Government, 1987), 10.
11. Spulak, 31–39.
12. Shalikashvili, 13.
13. Primary credit for forcing the US to think about the RMA concept should go to Andrew Marshall, director of the Department of Defense Office of Net Assessment.
14. Jeffrey Cooper, for example, argues that US “coherent operations” can be so fast-paced and coordinated that the enemy will be unable to respond. Jeffrey R. Cooper, “Another View of the Revolution in Military Affairs” (Paper presented at the Fifth Annual Conference on Strategy, US Army War College, April 1994), especially 46–51. For contrary views, see John F. Harris, “In Electronic Battlefield Training Exercise, ‘Fog of War’ Remains Thick,” Washington Post, 24 April 1994, 18.
15. See, for example, Grant T. Hammond, “Future War,” presentation to Air Force 2025, Air War College, Maxwell AFB, Alabama, 26 September 1995.
16. Secretary of the Air Force Donald B. Rice, The Air Force and U.S. National Security: Global Reach—Global Power (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Air Force, June 1990), 2.
17. John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, “Cyberwar Is Coming!” Comparative Strategy 12 (April–June 1993): 141–65.
18. See, for example, Benoit Morel and Theodore A. Postol, “A Technical Assessment of the Soviet TBM Threat to Europe,” in Donald L. Hafner and John Roper, eds., ATBMs and Western Security: Missile Defenses for Europe (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger Publishing Co., 1988), 21–56.
19. Quoted in Leslie Alan Horvitz, “Cold War’s End Has Little Effect on Arms Sales,” Washington Times, 7 December 1994, 10.
20. See Comdr Frank C. Borik, “Sub Tzu and the Art of Submarine Warfare,” Defense Analytical Study (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air War College, April 1995).
21. “Practical Morality,” Interavia/Aerospace World, June 1993, 13.
22. Ibid.
23. Horvitz, 10.
24. Martin van Creveld, The Transformation of War (New York: Free Press, 1991).