Jeffrey Record and "Bounding the Global War on Terrorism"

I've quoted before from the paper:

Bounding the Global War on Terrorism (Dec 2003) by Jeffrey Record of the Strategic Studies Institute and professor in the Air Force's Air War College.  The focus of Record's paper is assessing Bush's "global war on terrorism" (GWOT): its definition, its successes and failures, its prospects.

Bush and his team are defining virtually their entire foreign policy in terms of the GWOT.  The medals soldiers in Iraq received are formally for their service in the GWOT.  In his May 24 speech devoted to the Iraq War, Bush sought to define Iraq as part of the GWOT, as he has since the buildup to war began. At the beginning of his speech, Bush sought to dramatically link the Iraq War with The Terrorists:

We've also seen images of a young American facing decapitation. This vile display shows a contempt for all the rules of warfare, and all the bounds of civilized behavior. It reveals a fanaticism that was not caused by any action of ours, and would not be appeased by any concession. We suspect that the man with the knife was an al Qaeda associate named Zarqawi. He and other terrorists know that Iraq is now the central front in the war on terror. And we must understand that, as well. The return of tyranny to Iraq would be an unprecedented terrorist victory, and a cause for killers to rejoice. It would also embolden the terrorists, leading to more bombings, more beheadings, and more murders of the innocent around the world.

Record discusses the risk that the current definitions used in the GWOT will:

...give states facing violent internal challenges, even challenges based on legitimate grievances (e.g., Kurdish and Shiite uprisings against Saddam Hussein), the benefit of the moral doubt, and in so doing invite such states to label their internal challenges "terrorism" and to employ whatever means they deem necessary, including the terrorism of counterterrorist operations of the kind practiced by the French in Algeria and the Russian in Chechnya.

And we see that already in the Iraq War.  The opposition, employing the tactics of irregular warfare, become The Terrorists in official rhetoric, lumping any kind of militant opposition - or anyone who happens to get swept up and stuck into the gulag - together with al-Qaeda as The Terrorists, the evil ones, the enemy of America, the killers of innocents.

Record discusses the problems of defining terrorism at some length in the first part of his paper.  That discusses takes fuller form when he looks at the war aims which the Bush Administration has articulated for the GWOT.  He identifies six of them.

(1) Destroy al-Qaeda.  Record sees the war against al-Qaeda and similar Muslim extremist groups targeting the United States for attack as a necessary undertaking for the obvious reason that they are systematically targeting Americans for killing, all too often successfully.  And while some substantial progress has been made since the 2001 attacks, the Iraq War has so far been a setback in pursuing that goal:

There have been considerable successes against al-Qaeda since 9/11 - the destruction of its base in Afghanistan, the killing and capture of key operatives, the disruption of planned attacks, all of which may account for the absence of another mass-casualty attack on U.S. soil since 9/11.  But al-Qaeda is also a fanatically determined foe with demonstrated recuperative powers, and its declared goals command significant and, some believe, growing political traction in the Muslim world.  Moreoever, the establishment of a large U.S. military presence in Iraq offers a new and proximate target set for al-Qaeda and other jihadist bombers, and the failure of that pressence to stabilize Iraq eases the ability of al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda-inspired organizations to infiltrate the country and conduct their operations without detection.

Record believes that this goal is realistic, so long as al-Qaeda is understood as not merely a single organization or group, but a movement as well.  And that even the most fanatical movement can and do evolve over time.  Al-Qaeda and the broader jihadist movement is not a static threat.  Despite the great tensions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, for instance, the Sunni jihadist group al-Qaeda at least explored the idea of cooperation with the Shiite terrorist group Hizbollah in the 1990s.

(2) Destroy or defeat other terrorist organizations of global reach, including the nexus of their regional and national analogs.  Record believes that this goal involves considerable overreach.  "It is unattainable because of the sheer number and variety of terrorist organizations.  It is strategically unwise because it creastes unnecessary enemies at a time when the United States has more than enough to go around."  Because not all terrorist groups threaten the US.  That doesn't mean that America has to ignore terrorism directed at others or decline cooperation.  Not at all.  But it is a question of priorities and pragmatism:

Should the United States, in addition to fighting al-Qaeda, gratuitously pick fights with the Basque Euzkadi Ta Askatasuna (E.T.A. [Fatherland and Liberty]), the Sri Lanka Tamil Tigers, the Provisional Wing of the Irish Republican Army, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Sendero Luminoso, Hamas, and Hizbollah?  Do we want to provoke national- and regional-level terrorist organizations that have stayed out of America's way into targeting the U.S. interests and even the American homeland? 

Since Record prepared this paper, Bush's increasing endorsement of Israeli Prime Minister Sharon's aggressive policies in the occupied territories has made the question very current, especially as regards Hamas and Hizbollah.

(3) Deligitimize and ultimately eradicate the phenomenon of terrorism.  Record expresses particular concern about this goal.  It's essentially open-ended and, in practice, impossible.  Terrorism is a technique, irregular warfare.  Pro-Allied partisans in the Second World War used some terrorist techniques, including bombing of targets like bridges and railroads, ambusing enemy soldiers and assassinating collaborationist officials.  Terrorism is classically the weapon of the weak against the strong.  "How do you defeat a technique, as opposed to a flesh-and-blood enemy?, he asks. "You can kill terrorists, infiltrate their organizations, shut down their sources of cash, wipe out their training bases, and attack their states sponsors, but how to you attack a method?"

(4) Transform Iraq into a prosperous, stable democracy.  Even since December (when the paper was published), there have been many new developments that make thisgoal a morechallenging one and considerably raise the likely costs of doing so to the United States.  Not least of them the revelation of the systematic practice of torture on Iraqi prisoners.

Record includes this element because it is a key concept in the Bush Administration's view of the GWOT that establishing democracies in the Arab world will reduce the threat of terrorism.  And that Iraq in particular should become a model democracy which would have a powerful domino effect on pushing other Middle Eastern authoritarian regimes toward democratic reforms.  But with reference to Iraq, he strongly cautions against facile assumptions based on historical analogies to the post-Second World War experiences of Germany and Japan:

Though the administration has repeatedly cited U.S. success in post-World War II Germany and Japan as evidence that the United States can do for Iraq what it did for those two former Axis Powers, the differences between 1945 and 2003 trample the similarites.  First of all the United States entered postwar Japan and its occupation zone in Germany with overwhelming force, which preculded the eruption of local resistance.  Second, both occupations were almost universally regarded as legitimate; Germany and Japan had plunged the world into war, and the victors of that war had the right and obligation to defeat and occupty them.  Germany's and Japan's neighbors, victims of their aggression, wanted the United States and its allies in control.  In the case of Japan, the Emperor himself legitimized Japan's unconditional surrender when he directly addressed the Japanese people over the radio, calling upon them to acdept the end of the war, and he legitimized General Douglas MacArthur's authority by repeated public appearances with him. ... In contrast, most of the world, including key friends and allies, opposed the U.S. war on Iraq, and it is fair to say that the U.S. occupation of iraq fails the test of legitimacy in the eyes of an over whelming number of Arabs.

He might also have referred to the grim fact that after years of brutal war, the supply of men of prime military age had been greatly reduced.

(5) Transform the Middle East into a regiion of participatory self-government and economic opportunity.  This is a far bigger and costlier task, especially if it is to be achievedby American-led warsof liberation in additional countries in the region, than the job of turning Iraq into a stable democracy, a goal to which the Bush Administration has so far not been willing to commit the necessary troop resources to establish basic stability.  Other than the hope, so far not bolstered by developments in reality, that a model democracy can be established in Iraq and provide an overwhelmingly persuasive goal for other countries in the area, there doesn't seem to be much of a plan to achieve this grand-sounding goal.

And he asks the very relevant question, how reasonable is the belief that democracy would produce governments more friendly to the US, or less willing to promote anti-American terrorism than the Saudi Arabias and Pakistans of today's world?   "Indeed," he writes, "fear of an Islamist electorate accounts in no small measure for the persistence of autocracy in Algeria, Egypt, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia.  Are U.S. strategic interests in the Muslim world really better served by hostile democracies than by friendly autocracies?"

Now, any admirer of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson would love to believe that democracy everywhere, as fast as it could come, would be the best thing that could happen.  But in reference to the phenomenon of terrorism, life is not quite so simple.  Referring to domestic terrorists like Timothy McVeigh of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Record concludes: 

It is, in any event, not at all self-evident that anti-Western Islamist terrorism would cease or even significantly diminish with the emergence of friendly democracies and economic opportunity in the Middle East. ... Political extremism has a general though by no means exclusive assocaition with the absence of democracy and economic opportunity, but with respect to individual terrorists and terrorist groups, there is no demonstrable cause and effect relationship.  Left-wing terrorism in democratic Europe and the United States during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s attracted well-educated children of privilege; Osama bin Laden was born to great wealth; his chief lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri, is a surgeon by profession; and most of the 9/11 attackers were educated and skilled.

(6) Halt, by force if necessary, the continued proliferation of WMD and their means of delivery to hostile and potentially hostile states and other entities.  The most important and deadly form of WMD, of course, is nuclear weapons.  Record makes the important point that for states, a policy of deterrance has worked in practice to restrain states of various kinds from the use of nuclear weapons, that can't necessarily be extended to the acquisition of nuclear weapons.

Here is one way in which the enormous risks of the Bush Doctrine of preventive war becomes evident, assuming that it is a general approach and not just an elaborate construct to justify the invasion of Iraq.  If it is perceived as a general policy, it creates an incentive for potential targets of US attack like North Korea or Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.

All of this suggests that the value of threatened or actual preventive military action may be limited to target states, like Iraq, that are incapable of either offereing effective military resistance or placing at risk assets highly valued by the United States and its allies.  States capable of doing so may indeed be deterring the United States rather than being deterred. ... In any event, the very facts of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM and its unexpectedly burdensome aftermath severely constrain U.S. military resources for a second preentive war any time soon.

In practice, this goal is achievable.  But it will require an effective international anti-proliferation regime more effective than that in place.  And that would require a major change in the Bush Administration's approach to international treaties limiting nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and their enforcement.  It also raises serious questions about the current reliance on Pakistan as an ally in the GWOT, given their dubious distinction of being the worst nuclear proliferator of recent years.

Record addresses the question of the sustainability of the GWOT as currently defined and practiced, which includes the Iraq War in the administration's view.  Record isn't quite this dramatic in his statement of the problem, but it's not sustainable under current conditions.  With a balooning deficit, an overstretched military, an unwillingness to discomfort affluent Republican voters with the prospects of a draft, a stubborn insistence on ever-increasing tax relief for the wealthiest, and a serious credibility gap and loss of public confidence in the Iraq War, the GWOT simply not sustainable without a change in those conditions.

Record makes an important point about the willingness of the public to accept casualties in war, one which I think is accurate even though it defies the conventional wisdom and the comfortable story lines to which our lazy national press have accomodated themselves.  Americans are willing to accept casualties in conflicts which they believe are necessary and in the real interests of the country

Elite civilian and miltary opinion has ... tended to overestimate public sensitivity to incurring casualties; most Americans are willing to tolerate substantial casualties if they believe in the cause for which they are incurred and see visible policy progress.  The problem, at least before 9/11, was casualty phobia mong the political and military elites, which produced a series of timid U.S. military internventions in Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan, only one of which committed U.S. ground forces to possible combat.  But the interventions of the 1990s were wars of choice; most Americans continue to regard the war against Iraq as a war of necessity, and therefore worth much greater risk in blood and treasure.

"There is certainly no evidence of intolerance of U.S. casualties at the rates that have been incurred so far," he says.  But he soon goes on to report signs of growing dissent over the Iraq War that were evident in public opinion polls even by late summer 2003 which already provided evidence of significant public "intolerance" for the Iraq War and its associated casualties, an intolerance which has grown dramatically since December.

Record also suggests six adjustments in our current approach to the GWOT to "bound" it, i.e., to give it a more realistic, achievable definition:

(1) Deconflate the threat.  See below for more detail

(2)  Substitute credibile deterrence for preventive war as the primary policy for dealing with rogue states seeking to acquire WMD.

(3) Refocus the GWOT first and foremost on al-Qaeda, its allies, and homeland security.

(4) Seek rogue-state regime change via measures short of war.  Record doesn't dwell on this concept at length.  The US record on "regime change" via covert action is not unambiguously inspiring.  Both Democratic and Republican administrations have decided that annoying regimes with uncomfortable policies required regime change "via measures short of war" in Iran, Guatemala, Chile and other places.  The results have at times resulted in considerable "blowback" onto the US, and unnecessary hardships on the populations who found themselves subject to the changed regimes.

(5) Be prepared to settle for stability rather than democracy in Iraq, and international rather than U.S. responsibility for Iraq.  Events since December have largely overtaken this recommendation.  In any case, I suspects that Bush and most officials of his government intended to install some compliant regime and christen it "democracy." (Pun intended on "christen.")  And despite considerable UN assistance on trying to arrange the June 30 transition, Iraq is still a case of "you broke it, you own it" for the US.

(6) Reassess U.S. force levels, especially ground force levels.

The issue of "threat conflation" is one in which the definition of the threat becomes critically important.  At least, for the purposes of this paper, Record used the Bush Administration's paradigm of regarding the Iraq War as one episode in the GWOT.  In fact, there is considerable evidence now in the record that make it highly doubtful that the administration's key decision-makers actually believed the claims about WMDs and links to al-Qaeda that justified selling the Iraq War as part of the GWOT.

Still, Record provides useful insights into how the Iraq War relates to the struggle against anti-American terrorism.  Viewed as an aspect of the GWOT, the priority the administration gave to invading Iraq represents a serious conflation of the threats of "rogue states" and transnational terrorist groups like al-Qaeda.  States like Iran and North Korea can be deterred from military aggression in a way that a religiously-motivated group of zealots like al-Qaeda cannot be. The latter really is close to what Bush described in the May 25 quotation above as "a fanaticism that was not caused by any action of ours, and would not be appeased by any concession." (Even there, some caution is in order; there is evidence that al-Qaeda made mutually-beneficial deals with the regimes of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, though neither of those regimes represent al-Qaeda's Islamic ideal - far from it.)

The practical consequences of threat conflation Record describes in stark terms, arguing here that in reality the Iraq War was not a part of the GWOT but a hindrance to it:

Strategically, Operation IRAQI FREEDOM was not part of the GWOT; rather, it was a war-of-choice distraction from the war of necessity against al-Qaeda.  Indeed, it will be much more than a distraction if the United States fails to establish order and competent governance in post-Saddam Iraq.  Terrorism expert Jessica Stern in August 2003 warned that the bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad was "the latest evidence that America has taken a country that was not a terrorist threat and turned it into one."  How ironic it would be that a war initiated int he name of the GWOT ended up creating "precisely the situation the administration has described as a breeding ground for terrorists; a state unable to control its borders or provide for its citizen's rudimentary needs."  Former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director of counterterrorism operations and analysis, Vincent Cannistraro, agrees:  "There was no substantive intelligence information linking Sadda to international terrorism before the war.  Now we've created the conditions that have made Iraq the place to come to attack Americans."

Record's analysis gives some good ideas about the way the national efforts of the US need to be refocused in approaching the fight against terrorism.  Although he employs the term GWOT in the paper, he stresses that dealing with the jihadist threat is much less of a war in the normal sense of the term than it is an international law-enforcement effort than may involved military elements:

Indeed, the key to their defeat lies in the realm of intelligence and police work, with military forces playing an important but nonetheless supporting role.  Beyond the military destruction of al-Qaeda's training and planning base in Afghanistan, good intelligence - and luck - has formed the basis of virtually every other U.S. success against al-Qaeda.  Intelligence-based arrests and assassinations, not divisions destroyed or ships sunk, are thecutting edge of successful counterterrorism.

And, as he notes a few paragraphs later, even the initial successes in Afghanistan have been severely compromised by the lack of meaningful follow-up actions.

Although I have reservations about some of his suggestions, as noted above in relation to regime change, Record's approach to the GWOT is the kind I hope we see returning to official government policy soon.