World War IV Required Reading

Hoover Institution Policy Review ^ | 1/04/06 | Tony Corn

[Buzwardo]

Four years after the September 11 events, while many of the initial assumptions of the global war on terrorism have undergone an agonizing reappraisal, a new Washington consensus about the nature of the challenge facing the West and the moderate Muslim world has yet to emerge. Can the notoriously dysfunctional interagency process ever be fixed by organizational tinkering alone, without the elaboration of a common conceptual ground? However lively it may be at times, the Beltway’s ongoing “Operation Infinite Conversation” is no substitute for strategizing.

Does it make sense to keep framing the issue in terms of “terrorism” when the enemy itself, taking a leaf from the book of the most advanced American strategists, talks about “fourth-generation warfare?” At the working level, federal agency officers from DOD, DOS, DHS, AID and the intelligence community come to the GWOT with heterogeneous concepts, doctrines, lenses, frames of reference, metrics, etc. and talk past one another — when they don’t end up working at cross purposes.

Contrary to what is often argued, the main problem lies not so much in the difference of organizational culture between law enforcement and national security agencies as in the disconnect between the two lead foreign affairs agencies — the Pentagon and the State Department. In a nutshell: While there is no shortage of area expertise and cultural intelligence among U.S. diplomats, the State Department as an institution appears unable to make the transition from a bureaucratic to a strategic way of thinking.1 Similarly, there is no shortage of strategic brainpower and literacy among members of the U.S. military, but the Pentagon as an institution appears equally unable to shift from a network-centric warfare to a culture-centric warfare paradigm.2 The following twelve propositions constitute a provisional attempt to provide a common conceptual basis for more effective interagency coordination.

[Buzwardo]

This was posted a couple weeks ago but only received a couple comments and a couple hundred views. The piece should be required reading IMO, so I'm reposting. It's a long read, but well worth the effort. Wish our congresscritters had their collective noses shoved into this piece.

[B.O. Plenty]

BUMP

[indthkr]

bump

[rellimpank]

--a speedy overview convinced me to print it for later reading-

Unfortunately, the average congresscritter-like the average American-(largely thanks to TV-watching for three generations) has an attention span shorter than the time it takes to read a compound sentence, let alone a paragraph , or an article such as this--

[dirtboy]

bookmark for later

[jigsaw]

Bookmarked and printed out. Thanks for the heads up.

[Santiago de la Vega]

Thanks for the repost.

Here's the pull-quote:

"In the context of the Middle East, it is simply impossible to overestimate the centrality of “defense diplomacy” for a forward strategy of freedom. Yet, Beltway debates over the respective merits of hard vs. soft power invariably “misunderestimate” the importance of military soft power, be it called military diplomacy or security cooperation, and be it conducted at the multilateral level (the various NATO schools) or at the bilateral level (the joint DOD-DOS International Military Education and Training program)."

The problem with US foreign policy is that no one is in charge. That's what Corn is writing in this article.

Rice does her thing, Rumsfeld, does his, Snow plods along on his own path, but they don't answer to any one person. Bush is too busy with politics and domestic affairs to do the job right.

Until the US administration takes a lesson from the German General Staff - as the US military did - and puts one person in charge, we will have each horse pulling in a different direction and the ship of state will be pulled apart.

(loony metaphor alert!)

It's a simple lesson.

All the Secretaries must report to one person who controls all of US foreign policy.

I was hoping it'd be Rove, but I don't see it happening.

We need George Marshall.

[PGalt]

Interesting article. Thanks for posting.

[Tolik]

Thanks!

Long but Very Interesting!

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[Carry_Okie]

This is an outstanding observation:

The West is no more at war with terrorism today than it was at war with blitzkrieg in World War II or revolution during the Cold War. The West is at war with a new totalitarianism for which terrorism is one technique or tactic among many.

Why the divergence? Because terrorism is a very useful justification for an increase in domestic police power.

At the operational and theater-strategic level, then, counterinsurgency is a more relevant paradigm than counterterrorism; and at the national-strategic level, the nexus between insurgency and weapons of mass disruption will have to be given at least as much importance as the much-discussed nexus between terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.

I'm not sure that this distinction has penetrated our policy bureaucracy, much less been adsorbed.

One can easily see our own militia as a form of counterinsurgency with regard to terrorism domestically, yet it is the one element of our defense that lies woefully underutilized.

[MNJohnnie]

Pentagon as an institution appears equally unable to shift from a network-centric warfare to a culture-centric warfare

True to a point except it demonstrates complete inability to understand what Special Forces does. The Pentagon, (god help me I am defending the puzzle palace) is MUCH closer to understand the what State does then State is understanding what the Pentagon does.

Remember, it is the State Department geeks who are running around tell people like that NY Time clown Jame Risen about how Bush and Co "staged a coup on Iraq policy" and supposedly "hijacked it away from the consensus building system at State". That demonstrates that State not only has NO clue about strategic issues, it has NO clue about it's true place in the world. What is amazing is supposedly "objective journalists" are repeating this hysteric State Department nonsense!!!!! Seems we need to establish a class on Constitutional Law and Civics as part of the Journalism 101 curriculum at our "places of higher learning".

[MNJohnnie]

The problem with US foreign policy is that no one is in charge. That's what Corn is writing in this article.

That is a hysterically stupid statement. YES there is ONE person in charge, however his tools at State and CIA et al have decided THEY know better the the boss how to do the mission. The SYSTEM is working quite well thank you, PARTS of it are running rough and need to be hammered back into place. Like most psuedo intellectuals, this author pretends to be wise by shovling crap over everyone while avoiding addressing the REAL problem. The REAL problem is some of the minions need to be reminded THEY work for the President NOT vice versa.

[SJackson]

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[Petronski]

Calling the Cold War "WWIII" is very silly, since it already has a name: "the Cold War."

We're currently battling in a "phony war" period of WWIII.

[DuncanWaring]

That's like saying "Calling the Great War 'WWI' is very silly, since it already has a name: 'the Great War'."

[Petronski]

The Cold War can hardly be a world war, can it? Since the two main adversaries never met on the field of battle?

Don't tell me about Korea or Vietnam or any other client-state conflicts. I'm talking about the Soviet order of battle amassed in combat against the American order of battle. Never happened.

That's like saying "Calling the Great War 'WWI' is very silly, since it already has a name: 'the Great War'."

At the time of the Great War, no one had imagined there would be another one. It was "the war to end all wars."

[Huber]

That is a hysterically stupid statement. YES there is ONE person in charge, however his tools at State and CIA et al have decided THEY know better the the boss how to do the mission. The SYSTEM is working quite well thank you, PARTS of it are running rough and need to be hammered back into place. Like most psuedo intellectuals, this author pretends to be wise by shovling crap over everyone while avoiding addressing the REAL problem. The REAL problem is some of the minions need to be reminded THEY work for the President NOT vice versa.

I wish it were as simple as you describe, however in a free society, the politics are much more complicated than you depict, and the professional bureaucracy is entrenched in both the State Dept. and the DoD. Even the president can only come in an crack heads and take names to a minor extent, usually focusing on key leaders. Beyond that the political fallout from an all out housecleaning would render such an action unworkable. Imagine if you will, the media focus on discrimination lawsuits from fired or demoted bureaucrats who happened to be members of the various protected classes.

Where Bush's leadership has fallen flat is on the communication front, in being able to consistently articulate the vision and the rationale for doing things differently.

[Huber]

Once again, in view of the length of the piece, for the convenience of the average time harried FReeper, here is the thesis statement of the article:

The West is no more at war with terrorism today than it was at war with blitzkrieg in World War II or revolution during the Cold War. The West is at war with a new totalitarianism for which terrorism is one technique or tactic among many. At the operational and theater-strategic level, then, counterinsurgency is a more relevant paradigm than counterterrorism; and at the national-strategic level, the nexus between insurgency and weapons of mass disruption will have to be given at least as much importance as the much-discussed nexus between terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.

[MNJohnnie]

Where Bush's leadership has fallen flat is on the communication front, in being able to consistently articulate the vision and the rationale for doing things differently

Only if you don't bother to actually listen and let the MSM do your all your information gathering for you. Bush gives dozens of important speeches weekly. Beyond a blurb here or there how much reporting on it do you get from the MSM?

Conservatives really should know better then to invest all this power in the MSM. The top 3 Radio Talk Show hosts talk to more people each week then the nightly news shows. Quit looking to the MSM for news. They are YOUR ENEMY. Listening to the MSM is the modern equivilent of listen to Radio Berlin in 1943 to find out how the Allies are doing.

[Pirate21]

ping for later reading