19 February 2001
“…on the threats to American
security, what strikes me most forcefully is the accelerating pace of change in
so many arenas that affect our nation’s interests.” Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet on the "Worldwide Threat 2001: National
Security in a Changing World"
Gauntlet of
Emerging Threats
Anticipating
the nature of the next conflict and preparing for it are arguably the most
important tasks facing Marines and our intelligence community. Today, with warfare and almost everything
else in a state of rapid change, the task is exceedingly difficult as we run
the gauntlet of emerging threats. This article looks briefly at what lies ahead
and hopefully exploring
innovative ways to deal with nontraditional threats to our national security
interfacing with military, public, academic, and private agencies involved with
intelligence and information gathering and analysis.
In this post cold war era we face a chimera of threats to
international stability boiling in the cauldrons of “fourth generation warfare sometimes referred to as “stateless” or asymmetric warfare. Two central ideas shape what
we see as emerging with fourth generation: the nation-state's loss of its
monopoly on war and the return to a world of cultures in conflict. Of concern
is a fourth generation opponent who might have a non-nation-state base, such as
an ideology or religion. Our national security capabilities are designed to
operate within a nation-state framework. Outside that framework, they have
great difficulties. Martin van Creveld
in his, The Transformation of War, argues that the modem paradigm for
warfare, in which nation-states wage war for reasons of state, using formal
militaries that fight other organizations similar to themselves, with the
people supporting both but also distinguishable from both-the
"Clausewitzian Trinity" of government, army, and people-is
historically unusual.
Through most of man's time
on earth, war was nontrinitarian.
Families waged war, as did clans, tribes, cities, monastic orders, religions,
and even commercial enterprises (the British East India Company). They fought for many reasons, not just
"rational" reasons of state: for good cropland, for loot, for women
(Helen of Troy), for slaves, for sacrificial victims to their gods (the
"flowery wars" of the Aztecs), for the purity of their race. Often, there was no formal army with ranks
and uniforms, set apart from the people; all males strong enough to carry a
weapon were warriors. Indeed, an entire
people could be a military instrument; war by migration is no less effective
today than it was against the Roman Empire, as both Haiti and Cuba have
reminded us. In our view, future conflict will increasingly be nontrinitarian,
and as we have seen most recently in Gaza, formal trinitarian military forces
are often ineffective against it.
Cold War’s Demise: Diverse and Complex military challenges
With
the demise of the Cold War, conflicts induced by environmental decline are
putting a new face on war. In a projection of what the world might look like in
the year 2015, the intelligence community has concluded that issues like the
availability of water and food, changes in population and the spread of information and disease will increasingly
affect the national security of the United States. This assessment, contained
in an unclassified report called Global Trends 2015, indicates
ecological deterioration could eclipse ideological conflict as the dominant
national security concern throughout the world. We are seeing diminishing
resources in Africa, land scarcity in Latin America, and water shortages in the
Middle East. While in a large part these conflicts are often solely attributed
to ethnic differences but do in fact have environmental underpinnings. The number of wars resulting from growing
populations, environmental decline and the ready availability of weapons is
expected to rise sharply in the next century.
Today the
Cold War’s demise has ignited diverse and complex challenges to formal trinitarian military
forces encapsulated in volatile political
climates and in some cases ecological deterioration. No doubt the nation expects the U.S. Marine Corps
and intelligence community to overcome these complex challenges. The Corps and
the intelligence community now find themselves running a gauntlet consisting of
less conventional and more aberrant forms of conflict such as, fourth
generation warfare.
The end of the cold war moved the central security concern of the past
half-century, communist expansion, from the core to the periphery. Front
and center stage now stands the spread of massive and intense civil conflict as
well as the rise of rogue nations possessing ominous agendas. Equally important, we must recognize that
many future manifestations of fourth generation warfare remain unidentified.
Thus, the accurate prediction, warning, and analysis of terrorism,
transnational threats, asymmetric threats, and fourth generation warfare
activities are fast becoming a necessary skill for ensuring national security.
A chimera looms ahead, not all of its faces identifiable, but most of them
spiked and dangerous.
The stakes are high. The rapid diffusion of information, people,
and technology raises the risk of the proliferation of advanced technology and
weapons. The specter of weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of
rogue troublemakers is real. Furthermore, the targets of choice are
nonmilitary. In particular, global
demographic pressures contribute to large-scale environmental and resource
degradation, sapping economies and undermining political and regional
stability. Does any foundation of a country bear the importance of
the natural resources depended on for physical survival and economic
trade? And thus, does the disruption of any other foundation more
surely lead to conflict?
Resource Scarcity Fuels Future Conflict
Resource scarcity is likely to fuel future conflict. Competition for food, water, energy, and
potentially even “information” is a likely catalyst for war and conflict in our
solidly “urban” terrain. Both natural
and intentional events are likely to trigger an expeditionary response. Environmental conflict can be expected to
range from intrastate communal strife, to trans-border raids, to intentional
eco-terrorism and attacks (like Saddam Hussein’s burning of oil fields during
the Gulf War) to gain an advantage or achieve revenge.
We have seen and participated in conflicts over oil. However, international
confrontations over water appear now
across the globe. Unless responsible parties take more rational steps to
conserve and share our dwindling hydro resources a shooting war over water
rights appears more likely than not.
One in five countries suffer from water shortages.
National and international conflicts already brew over rights to scarce water
and will worsen without more workable agreements for increased water use and
similar global resources. As history promises, more than likely, at least some
of those agreements will fail. In addition, when they fail at what point do we
intervene, politically, economically, or militarily to secure the water rights
of an allied country? And, at what point will water rights issues
threaten our own stability and way of life through the increased cost of
exports, dwindling demand for US imports, or even, through the continued
struggle over water resources in the American West.
The recently published FM 3-100.4, Environmental Considerations in Military Operations, examines the affect of water on
conflicts in the Middle East. “In the West Bank, population growth in the
Jordan River basin increased demand for the scarce supply of fresh water.
Over pumping the aquifers depleted the water supply and degraded some aquifers
by causing saltwater intrusion from the Mediterranean. Because 40% of Israel’s
ground water originates in the former occupied territories, Israel sought to
protect its water supply by limiting water use during the occupation of the
West Bank. The stringent restrictions on water use imposed upon Jordan,
Syria, and Lebanon became another point of tension in the conflict of the
1960’s to 1970’s.”
Hear well this FM’s conclusion, “Countries rely on natural resources to achieve
political ends. A country overexploiting its own resources by
deforestation or polluting a neighboring country’s air or water may cause
corresponding increases in regional tensions”.
Consider an armed nation can no longer feed itself. Population
growth outstrips food production growth in one-third of all countries thereby
increasing the potential for regional instability. What human need is
more basic, receives a higher priority on Maslow’s scale of the hierarchy of
needs, than the need to feed oneself and one’s families? As long as
mankind endures so will these needs. We must anticipate these needs
surfacing as the catalyst of political instability and possible military
deployment.
Fourth Generation Warfare and Over Reliance on Technology
Meeting fourth generation warfare threats to stability and
security head-on, requires an enduring commitment to forward thinking and
military readiness. We currently possess the tools to achieve the
benefits of this commitment. The Marine Corps Vision Statement provides
insight on how leadership, bold, innovative people, and technology can play a
key role in adapting naval expeditionary forces for the undefined threats of
fourth generation warfare. Innovation and bold thinking advanced our
military capabilities for decades, often ensuring the Corps' position as the
world's premier force in readiness.
Today, we must call on these attributes again, while guarding
against over reliance on technology, to meet the demands of new global
challenges, such as fourth generation warfare, couple with ever-increasing
demands on our limited resources and operational forces. If recent events show us anything, it is that advanced technology
warfare is largely ineffective against terrorism and fourth generation
opponents. Advanced technology warfare
only seems to work when the enemy is willing to play the same game. It appears simply refusing to play can often
negate it. The reverse does not seem to
be true, i.e., that advanced technology warfare can simply ignore terrorism and
fourth generation warfare.
Fourth generation warfare percolates upward from a broad
range of destabilizing factors. From the festering regional instability caused
by borderless regional gangs all the way to the destabilizing criminal attacks
on finance and automation perpetrated by international organized crime. Fourth
generation warfare is the true fifth columnist directing public policy. A
novel blend of threats is coalescing, posing new operational and intelligence
challenges.
War and Crime are Increasingly Intertwined
War and
crime are increasingly intertwined, yielding ethnic enmity, refugees, displaced
persons and opportunities for criminal exploitation. These conflicts are exploited and fuelled by crime bosses, gang
leaders, and warlords supported by non-state soldiers (gangs and mercenaries). These recurring bad actors, criminals,
irregular bands, and gangs, which largely operate at the low end of the
technological spectrum, are beginning to exploit technology. Rogue gangs and disaffected groups access to
technology and cyber space is facilitated by money from organized crime, thus,
adding to the complexity of threats and blurring the distinction between war
and crime.
The cyber revolution, including the Internet and wireless
communication empowers small actors and favors networks. “Net-warriors” have already emerged, using
social “net-war” (as in the case of the
Zapatistas in Chiapas and global anti-trade activists) to influence perceptions
and conduct information operations.
Violent net-war, as a facet of fourth generation warfare, is not far
behind.
Transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) are increasingly
networked and control large sums of money.
At least a trillion and a quarter US dollars flow through the hands of
transnational organized crime each year, much of which is reinvested in
legitimate enterprises, extending the collective global reach and influence of
TCOs. It is not hard to imagine these
entities going beyond their current co-option of governments to actually
capturing a state (and its war making capabilities) to further their goals.
Trends and Potentials Influence of Emerging Threats
Furthermore, attempts to forecast the might or intent of
these organizations remains illusory at best. Far too many
intangibles affect their ability to affect world stability. Yet,
understanding and anticipating the trends and potentials influence of emerging
threats and conflict is vital to our national interests and global security.
Organizations of humble political or economic means at the lowest level may
instead perform actions with high impact and unforeseeable ramifications or
consequences. For the Corps, as illuminated in the Marine Corps Vision
Statement, the operational challenge is to ready our forces to address such a
broad spectrum of fourth generation warfare threat: the unexpected, and largely
undefined or ambiguous threats. The
Marine Corps Concept for the 21st century is the cornerstone in furnishing the
Corps' overarching window on future missions and a keen appreciation for fourth
generation warfare, the unexpected and undefined threats.
Intelligence
Personnel Can Underwrite Our Ability to Succeed
Operationally focused Marines and skilled intelligence
personnel can underwrite our ability to succeed in fourth generation warfare
venues. As Col. Ennis notes in the Oct 99 Gazette, “the first step in
operationalizing intelligence needs to be physical integration of intelligence
personnel within critical war-fighting functions. In a move aimed at gaining better understanding of the operator’s
requirements, the Marine Corps recently effected a change in the Marine
Expeditionary Force (MEF) G-2 organization that will result in the physical
integration of dedicated intelligence cell into key functional sections of the
MEF staff. Dedicated intelligence cells
(still subordinate to the MEF G-2) will soon be embedded within the G-3's
current ops, future ops, and force fires sections; and within the G-5's plans
section”. Nevertheless, while technological
advances are being pursued to fortify our fighting capabilities we must not
lose sight of operational and tactical solutions to the challenges that they
face.
Technological advances are not the only answer. It is recognized that in some
situations "low-tech" operational or tactical solutions are
viable alternatives to complex and very sophisticated high tech systems. To be
sure, we must place a safeguard on the over reliance on technology by
emphasizing people over things. This is especially key in dealing with some
aspects of global threats associated with fourth generation warfare.
No Shortages of Modern-Day Threats
The Marine Corps, law enforcement, and the intelligence
community recognize there are a broad class of global threats that endangers
our security and that of others around the world. With undefined threats
emerging, complicated by access to high technology and the proliferation of weapons
of mass destruction, the United States Marine Corps is boldly expanding its
cooperation with other services and agencies to provide a world-class chem.-bio
and consequence management response capability. The likelihood of a rogue state
or non-state entity will use weapons of mass destruction against U.S. interests
is growing.
Clearly
there are no shortages of modern-day threats to stability and security. We face a world of complex problems,
opportunities, and emerging threats.
Our economic power is intimidating. Our technological edge remains
impressive but dwindling. Our conventional military is without challenge on the
conventional battlefield. The new forms
of war and conflict that appear to be emerging can erode our military
advantage if we do not innovate and adapt. The complex and fast-changing world
in which we live defies easy description. The end of the Cold War shattered the
bipolar-superpower hold on the world that once made the world a fairly stable
and predictable place. The paradigm of the past was simple characterized by two
superpowers locked in a conflict with clearly defined forces and
well-understood rules.
The world of today
and tomorrow is one dominated by a conflict between those “who have” and those
“who have not”. Those with a
conflicting cultural or religious ideology are likely to challenge our
superiority according to their rules, not our rules. Their modus operandi blurs and will continue to blur the
distinctions between crime and war, criminal and civil, combatant and
non-combatant. Their actions will seek
to exploit the seams of the modern state’s internal and external security
structures. These emerging challengers
will embrace unconventional means not amenable to conventional responses.
Today, there are fewer rules and fewer people playing by them. Constant leaps
in technology threaten to break new paradigms even before they take shape. Yet,
the world is still held hostage by many of the cultural and ethnic conflicts of
the past once buried under the weight of the superpowers and other nation
states. Many ethnic conflicts have broken through the surface and reappeared in
places like the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Africa. We have witnessed the
results: death, destruction, destabilization, and desolation.
Genie of Proliferation Is Out of The Bottle
Advanced technologies once largely cornered by highly
developed nation states, are now finding their way into other hands and rogue
nations. The genie of proliferation like the genie of information; is out of the
bottle to stay. Technical sophistication is no longer limited to those of the
nation states. High technological applications for waging war from advanced
software simulation, GPS data, to high-resolution satellite imagery are
commercially available. Literally available to anyone who can pay the price
whether it is friend, foe, or potential adversaries.
Most worrisome are international terrorists seeking the
components or raw materials of mass destruction along with selected
technologies. Adaptive terrorist tactics are surfacing that are central to
fourth generation warfare and asymmetric threats we face today.
These adaptive tactics focus on negating the technological
and material advantages of large conventional military force like those of the
United States? This adaptive approach leads to finding ways to defeat our high
tech with low or no tech; leveraging our addiction to technology turning our
over reliance on technology into vulnerability. This adaptive modus
operandi ultimately will lead a terrorist to seek a chemical, biological weapon
or even a small nuclear device to threaten us with; not with the possibility of
a military defeat, but rather with the threatened destruction of one of our
cities or large sprawling urban areas.
Col.
Vincent J. Goulding, USMC in Parameters, Winter 2000 – 2001 writes,
"Asymmetric warfare" is "as old as warfare itself
". Col. Goulding highlights the
dangers in preparing only for the forms of warfare that suit us. In the
early 21st century, we seem to favor high-tech, mechanized combat on gently
undulating plains. Col. Goulding concludes that we are inviting future
enemies to engage us in such places as teeming urban slums, where a simple RPG
fired from behind a fruit stand can destroy a $4 million armored behemoth live
on CNN.
Blurred Distinction Between War and Peace
Today, we must recognize that ours is a world without front
lines. The continental United States and not just our embassies and forces
abroad are itself susceptible to attack. In addition, the potential method of
assault goes well beyond a terrorist with a truck full of conventional
explosives. Weapons of mass
destruction, cyber attacks, directed energy weapons, indiscriminate-improvised
explosive devices, and information operations can all appear at once where
distinctions between foreign and domestic, cyber and physical, criminal and
military are sufficiently blurred and ambiguous.
This post-modern conflict may be so ambiguous and continuous
that the conventional operational environment may all but disappear as a means
of describing the setting of conflict. As William S. Lind et al noted in
Oct 89 Gazette, “the distinction between war and peace will be blurred to the vanishing
point. It will be nonlinear, possibly to the point of having no definable
battlefields or fronts.
The
distinction between "civilian" and "military" may
disappear. Actions will occur concurrently throughout all participants' depth,
including their society as a cultural, not just a physical, entity. Major
military facilities, such as airfields, fixed communications sites, and large
headquarters will become rarities because of their vulnerability; the same may
be true of civilian equivalents, such as seats of government, power plants, and
industrial sites (including knowledge as well as manufacturing industries).
Success will depend heavily on effectiveness in joint operations as lines
between responsibility and mission become very blurred”.
We Are “The” Lightning Rod for Disaffected and
Disenfranchised
Whether we
like it or not, we are a lightning rod for the disaffected and disenfranchised.
For example, the Middle East is a place where a host of troubling facts and
agendas collide, intersect, overlap, and reinforce each other complicated by
ethnic strife, terrorism, border conflicts, religion, and access to water. The horrific attack on the USS Cole in October 2000 is a grim
reminder that we face a terrorist threat that knows no bounds. This mix of
fanaticism and low-tech delivery methods that defeat high tech defenses is the
mark of fourth generation warfare. The terrorists’ next strike is not a
question of “if”, but of where and
when. Our relative invulnerability to
conventional attack favors asymmetric means.
Adversaries will challenge us when and where they can, using whatever
means available. The power of the high
impact media and instant global communications magnify the importance of single
attacks.
So Where
Does Intelligence Fit In
So where does intelligence fit into this complex, shifting mix emerging
threats? Col T.X Hammes in the Sept 94 Marine Corps Gazette
explains, “fourth
generation war will require much more intelligence gathering and analytical and
dissemination capability to serve a highly flexible, interagency command system.
At the same time, the fact that fourth generation war will include elements of
earlier generations of war means our forces must be prepared to deal with these
aspects too…therefore, it will be essential for national leaders to make an
accurate analysis of the war they are about to enter. The complex mix of
generations of war with their overlapping political, economic, social,
military, and mass media arenas makes determining the type of war we are
entering more critical than ever”.
It is intelligence's
job to determine the kind of war we might be getting into and thwart those who
wish to undermine our national security. Simply put; intelligence needs to
provide I&W and HUMINT to ferret out and discover the terrorist’s plans and
intentions. This means providing
intelligence for a variety of threats and missions, in a milieu characterized
by changing technology, changing terrorist tactics, and changing information
needs.
In an international environment like ours, where national
strength is measured not just in military might but also in information,
intelligence exists to provide war-fighters with a decisive advantage.
Intelligence is the town crier for the commanders and his staff alert to
opportunities and dangers we face today, tonight, and tomorrow. To identify
trends that the combat leaders of our country need to think about now while
there is time to shape and or influence an outcome.
Sound intelligence is crucial. Intelligence must give us the clearest possible
insight into situations, events, players, and hidden agendas so our leaders can
decide quickly how or even if to engage. Intelligence must be able to warn of
any surprises a war-fighter may have to face.
Lack of situational awareness has long been recognized as a major
impediment to the execution of appropriate courses of actions and applies not
only to fourth generation and asymmetric warfare, but also to complex incident
and crisis management events (i.e., peace operations, urban operations,
counter-terrorism, complex humanitarian emergencies, consequence management,
and disaster response).
To be sure, we face a range of threats: Transnational concerns like terrorism,
fourth generation warfare, crime, asymmetric warfare, and cyber-warfare. We
will need to anticipate and understand the dynamics of these threats, obtaining
not only dominant knowledge but also, more importantly, dominant understanding
of the context of the action, event or engagement. Consider the benefits of understanding context in urban
operations. For example, the influence
of three-dimensional terrain features and density are vital pieces of
information for a commander faced with executing a rescue mission, constabulary
operation, or providing humanitarian assistance in a third world mega city,
inhabited by gangs, criminal free-enclaves, and sprawling barrios or favelas. A
world of constant change demands constant change from intelligence. For us,
adapting and improvising must be a way of life. How do we do all this?
A
new intelligence paradigm needs to be crafted.
Forging this capability will require a definition of the threat
environment, collaboration among the military services and a variety of actors
(including the intelligence community and non-traditional players such law
enforcement agencies), experimentation, and finally implementation. As a starting point, we will need to fully
explore and define the emerging operational environment. What are its
characteristics and boundaries, which are its actors, what means are at their
disposal and what are their corresponding capabilities and intentions? This will help quantify risk (vulnerability
relative to threat) and provide insights into deterrence, containment and early
engagement of threats.
We must develop tools and
approaches to sort pertinent information from noise. Additionally, we need to illuminate the mission essential tasks
of potential adversaries by exploiting both traditional tools and the
contemporary information infrastructure through better use of open source
intelligence (OSINT), deception, and development of cyber-intelligence
(CyberINT). HUMINT is an essential element of this approach. Combining traditional tools, HUMINT, OSINT
and CyberINT can assist in identifying the precursors and indicators of violence
(such as group mobilization, criminal exploitation, proliferation of WMD
materials, etc.) that may trigger military (or combined military-civil)
response. Adopting the concept of “Deep
I&W”, that is extending sensing to capture trends and potentials prior to
recognition of an overt threat to minimize the OPFOR advantage, is
essential. To do so, sensing,
surveillance and reconnaissance efforts will require a flexible, integrated
analysis and synthesis component.
Adapting
to novel and emerging threats requires a blend of old and new skills. Many tried and true intelligence techniques
still apply. Anticipating the new faces of war and nature of the next conflict
is arguably the most important task facing Marines and our intelligence
community. Today, with warfare and
almost everything else in a state of rapid change, the task is exceedingly
difficult as we run the gauntlet of emerging threats.
Clark
L. Staten, Executive Director & Senior Analyst, Emergency Response &
Research Institute (ERRI) concludes,“
The nature of
global conflict is changing. It is the considered opinion of the ERRI that
there is a general paradigm shift underway in regard to how future conflicts
will unfold. This transition is one of form rather than substance. Mass
violence, injuries and deaths will continue to occur, although we believe they
will happen in different places and in differing ways than one might currently
imagine”. Lessons learned from counter-insurgency operations, historical
constabulary operations and contemporary police experience (both urban and CIVPOL)
also apply (remember the USMC’s Small
Wars Manual).
Collaboration
and partnership, such as interagency, interdisciplinary partnerships with law
enforcement agencies to explore and experiment with novel intelligence
applications and approaches for the emerging threat environment workspace
should be explored.
At
the end of the British Empire, many units of the former colonial and dominion
armies formed “Regimental Alliances” to help negotiate the rapid political and
cultural change. Experimental “regimental alliances” of military and civil
police and security agencies may be a valuable tool for addressing the rapid
changes fueling the emerging threat environment. Such experimentation, recognizing Constitutional issues and the
distinctions between military and police missions, could be achieved through an
“emerging threat workspace.” This
emerging threat workspace needs to address the issue of armed conflict that no
longer has much to do with formal conventional battlefields. Captain Larry
Seaquist, USN (Ret.) in Proceeding of August 2000 writes:
“Less and less do we see opposing armies take
to the field while the Geneva Convention shields civilians on the sidelines.
Television journalists show us every day the new characteristic engagement:
brutal, neighbor-on-neighbor killing. You still can watch soldier-on-soldier
combat or dogfights between supersonic aircraft, but you will need to tune in
to the History Channel right after the Battleships Were Beautiful hour….The new
faces of war are a ragtag collection of ne'er-do-wells, teenagers, and ordinary
citizens temporarily dragooned into service by the local thug-in-chief.
We need to focus sharply on
what lies ahead seeking thought about emerging and future conflict. We need to further develop our open source intelligence,
HUMINT and cultural intelligence capabilities and integrate them. Our intelligence must focus more on
cultural and social paradigms, not just military order of battle. Expand
relationships with civilian experts. For example the Marine Corps and the
Potomac Institute for Policy Studies announced the creation of the Center for
Emerging Threats and Opportunities (CETO) in December 2000. The center will focus on exploring
innovative ways to deal with nontraditional threats to our national security. Working with military, public, and private
agencies, the center will conduct research into operating force capabilities
required by the Marine Corps and joint warfighters for small-scale operations
and contingencies around the world. Such experimentation, recognizing
Constitutional issues and the distinctions between military and civilian law
enforcement missions, could be achieved through an “emerging threat
workspace.” This emerging threat
workspace could be a component of the newly established Center for Emerging
Threats and Opportunities (CETO). Its
exploration would target helping both disciplines learn from past experiences
to develop new intelligence applications and approaches to emerging threats at
the intersection of crime and war.
Ó Copyright by the authors and ERRI/EmergencyNet
News, 2001. All rights reserved.
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