- Appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
last week Secretary of State, Colin Powell stated: "The right to resort
to pre-emptive or preventive strikes is inherent in the sovereignty of
a nation to protect itself". He went on to state that "The concept
of pre-emptive strikes has been included in this year's Strategy Report
to alert the public to the fact that (the) terrorist threat is different
from other threats." The concept, he said, "could be applied
to terrorists or to a country".
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- In the wake of 9-11, with a virtually global desire of
governments to prevent that kind of attack from occurring in their countries,
this pronouncement of the US Secretary of State lends an aura of legitimacy
to a concept that can wreak fundamental changes in the governments of countries,
their relations with neighbors, and probably the map of the world over
coming decades. If post World War II experience is any guide, adopting
it as a general right of states would be a clarion call to chaos.
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- The Critical Questions
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- Powell's statement raises many questions: Why would
the leadership of the world's only superpower suddenly abandon a set of
foreign policy precepts that have carried it successfully through a century
of fundamental and often dangerous changes in the distribution and the
scale of world power, with many, perhaps even most of the benefits accruing
to itself? What could be so prized that its achievement or acquisition
would prompt that superpower to abandon or, at least, ignore friends, shed
alliances, and threaten to proceed alone on a path that has no obvious,
profitable or necessarily successful outcome? What has changed so radically
that our leadership feels compelled to adopt a new strategy?
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- What Has Changed?
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- The last question, the environmental one, needs to be
answered first. The answer is not simple, but it is clear: The enemy
has changed. We struggled through most of the past half century under the
enigmatic threat of the Soviet Union. With the fall of the Berlin Wall,
and the dismemberment of the Union, the so-called "evil empire"
was gone. But, as James Woolsey said in his confirmation hearings to be
approved as Director of the CIA, what we faced in its place was a "pit
of poisonous snakes." Those enemies, small, dispersed, sometimes
deadly, difficult to detect, but above all lacking in organized structure,
imposed brand new requirements on strategy, tactics, equipment, training,
and mindset.
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- We were not ready for this. Our military thinkers and
our security professionals have tinkered for years with Low Intensity Conflict
(LIC), but it was always considered a small event below the horizon of
the larger potential battle. Now it is the potential battle, and the horizon
has no other immediate threat promontories.
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- We are still not ready for this. Our force structure
is well-equipped, high tech, resistant to attack and able to attack in
the air, on the ground, and under water. But it is bulky. It can do enormous
damage quickly, but it is wasted on small targets. It is designed for
battlefield engagement or for standoff destruction. But it is much harder
to focus down to the scale of caves, forests and villages where the rules
of guerilla warfare control. That, plus the constant ambiguity of doing
battle in a place where most people are not the enemy, is the core problem
in Afghanistan.
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- The Search for Answers
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- The search of our leadership, as bumbling as statements
may sometimes seem, is for clarity. Just what specific challenges do these
"poisonous snakes" present to us? Where and when are they likely
to attack, or how? When they attack, will we be ready to repel them, or
will our posture be the shocked and reactive one that followed 9-11? Where
and how can we position ourselves globally to do the most good, meaning
most effectively defend ourselves? And on whom can we truly count? On
the scale of terrorist challenges of the past few decades, just how much
of our blood and treasure should we plan to devote to this enemy? What
is our optimum force structure for this?
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- We can forgive ourselves if we flounder around in this
for a while. In our national interest, however, we must find workable answers
and put them in place sooner rather than later.
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- The questions are good. However, good answers are not
easy. The best answers we can get are derived from honestly played out
game scenarios and from hard intelligence on specific threats or events.
Neither generates a foolproof set of answers for strategic planning. Everybody,
including the terrorist, learns from the past. The answers we do get begin
to shift the moment trouble starts, and any plans we have made become less
and less well targeted. The best we can do is plan around as broad a range
of plausible scenarios as possible, test capabilities against each of them,
and make necessary adjustments. Then we should expect that the next real
case will somehow be different but still within our ballpark. Perhaps
this quandary prompted Winston Churchill to say: "Plans are useless,
but planning is essential."
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- The change of enemies is not alone responsible for our
situation. Uncertainty was there all the time.
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- This discussion enters the rationale for preventive and
pre-emptive strikes through the door of readiness. In a world of six billion
people in 180 countries where 50-60 of the countries are variously unstable,
just what should we be ready for? The media reporting set of questions-who
what, where, when, why, and how--is the policy starter set. Faced with
this order of complexity, it is easy to retreat into fixation on a single
enemy, once the Soviet Union, now Al Qaida or Iraq. It is easy to seize
on a single answer: pre-emptive or preventive strikes. However, it is
hard to focus on 50-60 problem countries or 60-70 terrorist groups at once.
Obviously one of the ways to deal with that, if one knows enough soon enough,
is to take pre-emptive or preventive action. For the nation state system
as a whole, the question is who does it and under what circumstances?
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- Some Questionable Assumptions
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- The first question above boils down to: why does current
leadership think we must abandon the well-tested and successful policies
of the past five decades? The answers seem to lie in a string of dubious
or false assumptions: First, the United States is more seriously threatened
than any other country. Second, other governments do not understand the
seriousness of the threat. Third, other governments cannot be brought to
a sufficient level of awareness and understanding to see our need. Fourth,
we do not need international cooperation to succeed. Fifth, the solutions
we achieve unilaterally will be acceptable and durable. Sixth, our actions
can be pursued without consequences for our roles and standing in the international
system. Seventh, we will make enemies in carrying out our strategy, but
those animosities will fade as self-interest takes over in the future.
Eighth, the desire to do business with us will cause many countries to
go along with us despite their reservations or objections. Ninth, it is
much harder to get other countries to go along with us than it is to do
it ourselves. Tenth, the requirement for action is urgent. Eleventh, we
can serve the US national interest better by going it alone.
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- Each of those assumptions has a problem. The thought
that the United States is most threatened would be challenged by the Palestinians,
Iraq, East Timor, India, Pakistan, and at least half a dozen other countries.
Because other governments do not share our sense of urgency or importance
for attacking Iraq does not mean they lack understanding. It means that
so far our arguments have not been persuasive. If we produce convincing
evidence, they will listen, and perhaps still disagree that war is the
solution. Unless we intend to enter Iraq over that short piece of waterfront
it has on the Shatt al-Arab, at minimum we need air and overland rights
from several countries to get to Iraq. If we go it alone, we will forego
the support of numerous countries whose leaders can be helpful, and we
will be stuck with staying on our own to keep the results together.
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- The enemies we will make are not by any means governments
only; the terrorist population aligned against us will increase in many
different countries. The risk of a successful attack against us will therefore
grow. Other countries may do business with us without lifting a finger
to help us. Attacking Iraq is not an emergency; it is an option. We may
serve the narrow national interest in removing a presumed threat from Iraq,
but at the expense of damaging relations in virtually all parts of the
globe. In short, in a world that has grown both interdependent and crowded,
it makes less sense now for us to go it alone than it ever did.
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- Are There Any Rewards?
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- Is there, under this convoluted spectrum, a pot of gold?
There truly isn't. We can assume that with our far superior forces we will
surely win, but it would be foolish to consider this an easy campaign.
The Gulf War was said to be a slam-dunk, and battlefield casualties numbered
less than 800, but in a Veterans Administration report of May 2002 Gulf
War casualties were reported to include 8306 veterans dead and 159,705
veterans injured or ill. When personnel still on active duty are included,
the VA indicated in the May 2002 report that a total of 262,586 individuals
are "disabled veterans" due to duty in the Gulf and that 10,617
veterans have died of combat related injuries or illnesses since the initiation
of the Gulf War. That represents a casualty rate of more than 30% for
combat related duties between 1990 and 1991.
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- If Saddam has only the help of his Republican Guard divisions,
estimated at 120,000 strong, and they defend Baghdad as they are setting
up to do, our casualties could be far greater than in the Gulf War. If
the US uses depleted uranium shells as lavishly as it did during the Gulf
War, casualties from radiation alone will be numerous.
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- What then is the reward? Hardliners may say that we
will have had a free hand to clean out a snake pit, that we have shown
Saddam and his adherents that they cannot even think about making Weapons
of Mass Destruction (WMDs) without our considering it a threat. And that
demonstration should be a deterrent to other countries whose leaders have
dreams of WMDs, or who already have them.
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- The Problem Of Double Standards
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- Even the deterrent may be uncertain. For any rationale
for a pre-emptive strike against Iraq to have real credibility, it is essential
to get rid of the hypocrisy of the double standards that are implicit in
many Bush Administration statements. In addition to Iraq, US leaders have
talked about going after Libya, Syria, Iran, Sudan, and North Korea to
pre-empt their acquisition of weapons of mass destruction. But those countries
are well aware that the United States has not threatened the actual owners:
ourselves, Britain, France, China, Russia, India, Pakistan, and Israel
who, among them, have enough weapons today to return the earth to the stone
age. Bush core team members have said repeatedly that Saddam must be made
to live up to the 19 or more United Nations resolutions he has not observed.
Israel, on the other hand, has ignored more than 30 to date virtually without
US comment. Whatever might be going on behind the scenes, if anything,
to get the Israelis to shape up, the public posture of the United States
on this issue must be even-handed.
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- Bush and other spokesmen have argued that Saddam must
be called to account for going to war with Iran. However, Iranian leaders
who incited Shiite Muslims in Iraq to rebel against Iraq are ignored. Bush
is angered because Saddam is said to have tried to assassinate his father,
but now Bush's spokesman has said "one bullet" should take care
of Saddam. Warlike situations invite extremes.
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- As a final example of double standards, Saddam has not
threatened to use nuclear weapons that he may or may not have. The Israelis
have threatened to use them against Saddam, however, and we know the Israelis
have the weapons.
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- Revamping An Old Practice
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- Pre-emptive and preventive strikes are not a new idea.
Strategic or tactical surprise has always been considered advantageous.
In the years since its formation over fifty years ago the United Nations,
mainly through peacekeeping operations, has had the task of intervening
in numerous cases such as East Timor, Kashmir, Cyprus, Bosnia and the rest
of ancient Macedonia, Georgia, the Central African Republic, the Congo,
Palestine, and others. Each of these has required extensive, hands on involvement,
sometimes with former colonial powers. Most of the cases stem from one
country or group seeking to take, enlarge, or retrieve a piece of ground
and to deal with a population that it would like to acquire, keep or expel.
In many instances, the conflict began with a pre-emptive strike. All of
them require detached, third party mediation. Rewards are modest. Successes,
such as East Timor, which became independent this year after a 25-year
struggle, are not easily come by.
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- A principal lesson from 50 years of individual state
action in this matter is that states that undertake pre-emptive or preventive
strikes typically are unable to clean up their messes without help. Where
states do handle these cases themselves, as shown in Palestine, the outcome
is hard on the losers. Without third party intervention, the pre-empting
states or groups frequently proceed with heavy costs in casualties and
human rights abuses. If third party intervention is long delayed, as in
the case of Central Africa, the human costs skyrocket.
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- The Matter of Self Defense
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- The principle that one state may attack another to defend
itself is well established. Even so, there is much confusion and uncertainty
about what constitutes adequate provocation. Thus, the utility, legality
and modality of pre-emptive or preventive strikes are fundamental problems
for the nation state system and for the United Nations. The issues are
who does the work, what are the rules, and what are minimum acceptable
outcomes? The responses to those issues should not enable any nation to
garner territory, wealth, influence, or power. An important goal is that
the pre-empting state not be allowed to profit from the venture. As a general
rule, the United Nations appears to have adhered to such principles in
dealing with the many cases since its formation.
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- The Case Against Saddam
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- It is enlightening to examine the US charges against
Iraq in the light of Secretary Powell's statement. Before the Iran-Iraq
War began, the religious leaders of Iran were fomenting the Shiite Muslims
in Iraq to rebel, thereby facilitating Iran's possible capture of a disputed
border zone and gain of an ethnic Iranian population. It can reasonably
be argued that Iranian actions before the war began were a sufficient threat
to Iraqi territorial integrity to provoke a pre-emptive strike. The US
seems to have thought so at the time. Under the rules Powell has enunciated,
it would have been for Iraq to determine the severity of the threat and
to act accordingly. Before Iraq,s invasion of Kuwait began, the Kuwaitis
were dumping oil at prices that undermined Iraq's oil income, thereby upsetting
the Iraqi economy, which was still in the doldrums from the Iran-Iraq War.
Evidently the Kuwaitis were not listening to the complaints of other oil
exporters. The Kuwaiti case is less clear-cut, but Iraq had every reason
to consider the Kuwait price-cutting a provocative act, and depending on
duration and severity, perhaps cause for a pre-emptive strike. In a future
world governed by Secretary Powell rules, Saddam could feel free to decide
these provocations were harmful enough to attack. Outside consultations
before the fact would be nice, but Secretary Powell,s statement does not
suggest they would be required.
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- Ironically, under the Powell doctrine, Iraqi leadership
could consider the open, frequent and severe threats US officials have
made repeatedly against the country a cause for war. If Saddam were not
bright enough to see that, if joined, the battle would surely be lost,
a pre-emptive strike might already have been mounted. His best, perhaps
his only option in the circumstances is to do nothing, but the provocations
are quite real.
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- The Clarion Call
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- A look at the global picture of border disputes, displaced
peoples and discontented ethnic or religious minorities suggests that there
are numerous countries or internal country situations today where aggrieved
parties could justify pre-emptive or preventive strikes. These could be
either against rivals in the next country or in the same country. The United
Nations experience in a world where pre-emptive strikes were the unofficial
but implicit remedy for an offended party offers more examples than Secretary
Powell may wish to elevate to legitimacy by proclaiming a new and outright
global right of pre-emption. If the proclamation is taken literally, it
is a call to chaos in or around fifty or more countries. In that environment,
the work of the United Nations peacekeeping forces will never be done.
Certainly the world,s lone superpower should not seek to take on this one.
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- Where Does That Take Us?
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- In effect, the Secretary of State has articulated an
essential operating principle for the United Nations, not for the United
States or other individual nations. It is time to limit the use of such
action by nation states, not to expand it. Pre-emptive and preventive
strikes should be employed by the United Nations only under the most demanding
of circumstances, and in light of hard information. If nation states take
part, they should do so under UN leadership. Except in the face of imminent
attack, no version of the option should be available to anyone else. But
to avoid injustices, the UN has to be equipped to hear and respond to grievances
on a timely basis.
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- Freedom from harassment, attack or threats of attack
has to be confronted as a global issue that concerns everyone on the planet.
On this as on many other global issues, the common good is best served
by a common strategy of the nation state system as codified in the charter
and carried out in the operations of the United Nations.
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- The writer is a retired Senior Foreign Service Officer
of the Department of State and former Chairman of the Department of International
Studies of the National War College.
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