9/17/01
Fw: Intelligence Report
Susan,
Thanks for this news brief. It is
a concise desription of the situation
we're facing. I think that ,as far
as the response we need to make from this
country, it well describes the
type of thinking that needs to go into
our
planning. For us to really strike
back at this sort of terrorism, we need
surgical precision. Bombing
someone back to oblivion--it's been tried
(Afghanistan) and failed. The more
a people are put upon, the more pockets
of them are likely to rise up
swinging. The terrorists, being so greatly
outgunned, are using their abiity
to study the great powers to find the
weaknesses and target where and
how they are most vulnerable. This is a war.
They are fighting it with a great
sense of military strategy. We must use
our intelligence to direct our
might. Otherwise we will cause great
collateral damage that will serve
only to deepen the resolve of our enemies.
Marc
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Marc,
Thanks for your thoughts--keep
them coming. This article is, I think, a
cogent and well-researched piece
on the difficulties of fighting the
terrorists because they lack an
obvious center of gravity. I found it very
interesting.
Susan
____________________________________________________
S T R A T F O R
THE GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE COMPANY
____________________________________________________
13 September 2001
COMPLIMENTARY INTELLIGENCE REPORT
- FULL TEXT
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No Easy Battle
2000 GMT, 010914
Summary
In the wake of this week's
terrorist attacks in the
United States, the U.S. government
is trying to decide
how it can defeat its new style of
enemy. The key to
victory is finding the enemy's
center of gravity, or
what enables it to operate, and
destroying it. But what
has worked for the U.S. military
in the past may not be
enough this time around.
Analysis
The foundation of any successful
military operation is
defining and attacking the enemy's
center of gravity:
the capacity that enables it to
operate. A war effort
that does not successfully define
the enemy's center of
gravity, or lacks the ability to
decisively incapacitate
it, is doomed to failure.
The center of gravity can be
relatively easy to define,
as was the Iraqi command and
control system, or
relatively difficult to define, as
was Vietnam's
discovery of America's
unwillingness to indefinitely
absorb casualties. In either case,
identifying the
adversary's center of gravity is
the key to victory.
In the wake of this week's
terrorist attacks in the
United States, this question is
now being discussed in
the highest reaches of the
American government. The
issue, from a military standpoint,
is not one of moral
responsibility or legal
culpability. Rather, it is what
will be required to render the
enemy incapable of
functioning as an effective force.
Put differently, what
is the most efficient means of
destroying the enemy's
will to resist?
This is an extraordinarily
difficult process in this
case because it is not clear who
the enemy is. Two
schools of thought are emerging
though.
One argues that the attackers are
essentially agents of
some foreign government that
enables them to operate.
Therefore, by either defeating or
dissuading this
government from continuing to
support the attackers,
they will be rendered ineffective
and the threat will
end.
Such a scenario is extremely
attractive for the United
States. Posing the conflict as one
between nation-states
plays to American strength in waging
conventional war. A
nation-state can be negotiated
with, bombed or invaded.
If a nation-state is identified as
the attackers' center
of gravity, then it can by some
level of exertion be
destroyed. There is now an
inherent interest within the
U.S. government to define the
center of gravity as Iraq
or Afghanistan or both. The United
States knows how to
wage such wars.
The second school of thought
argues that the entity we
are facing is instead an
amorphous, shifting collection
of small groups, controlled in a
dynamic and
unpredictable manner and
deliberately without a clear
geographical locus. The components
of the organization
can be in Afghanistan or Boston,
in Beirut or Paris. Its
fundamental character is that it
moves with near
invisibility around the globe,
forming ad hoc groups
with exquisite patience and care
for strikes against its
enemies.
This is a group, therefore, that
has been deliberately
constructed not to provide its
enemies with a center of
gravity. Its diffusion is designed
to make it difficult
to kill with any certainty. The
founders of this group
studied the history of underground
movements and
determined that their greatest
weakness is what was
thought to be their strength:
tight control from the
center.
That central control, the key to
the Leninist model,
provided decisive guidance but
presented enemies with a
focal point that, if smashed,
rendered the organization
helpless. This model of
underground movement accepts
inefficiency -- there are long
pauses between actions --
in return for both security, as
penetration is
difficult, and survivability, as
it does not provide its
enemies with a definable point
against which to strike.
This model is much less attractive
to American military
planners because it does not play
to American
capabilities. It is impervious to
the type of warfare
the United States prefers, which
is what one might call
wholesale warfare. It instead
demands a retail sort of
warfare, in which the fighting
level comprises very
small unit operations, the
geographic scale is
potentially global and the time
frame is extensive and
indeterminate. It is a conflict
that does lend itself to
intelligence technology, but it
ultimately turns on
patience, subtlety and secrecy,
none of which are
America's strong suits.
It is therefore completely
understandable that the
United States is trying to
redefine the conflict in
terms of nation-states, and there
is also substantial
precedent for it as well. The
precursor terrorist
movements of the 1970s and 1980s
were far from self-
contained entities. All received
support in various ways
from Soviet and Eastern European
intelligence services,
as well as from North Korea,
Libya, Syria and others.
From training to false passports,
they were highly
dependent on nation-states for
their operation.
It is therefore reasonable to
assume the case is the
same with these new attackers. It
would follow that if
their source of operational
support were destroyed, they
would cease to function. A bombing
campaign or invasion
would then solve the problem. The
issue is to determine
which country is supplying the
support and act.
There is no doubt the entity that
attacked the United
States got support from state
intelligence services.
Some of that support might well
have been officially
sanctioned while some might have
been provided by a
political faction or sympathetic
individuals. But
although for the attackers state
support is necessary
and desirable, it is not clear
that destroying involved
states would disable the
perpetrators.
One of the principles of the
attackers appears to be
redundancy, not in the sense of
backup systems, but in
the sense that each group contains
all support systems.
In the same sense, it appears
possible that they have
constructed relationships in such
a way that although
they depend on state backing, they
are not dependent on
the support of any particular
state.
An interesting development arising
in the aftermath is
the multitude of states accused of
providing support to
the attackers: Afghanistan, Iraq,
Iran, Pakistan,
Algeria and Syria, among others,
have all been
suggested. All of them could have
been involved in some
way or another, with the result
being dozens of nations
providing intentional or
unintentional support. The
attackers even appear to have
drawn support from the
United States itself, as some of
the suspected hijackers
reportedly received flight
training from U.S. schools.
The attackers have organized
themselves to be parasitic.
They are able to attach themselves
to virtually any
country that has a large enough
Arab or Islamic
community for them to disappear
into or at least go
unnoticed within. Drawing on funds
acquired from one or
many sources, they are able to
extract resources
wherever they are and continue
operating.
If such is the case, then even if
Iraq or Afghanistan
gave assistance, they are still
not necessarily the
attackers' center of gravity.
Destroying the government
or military might of these
countries may be morally just
or even required, but it will not
render the enemy
incapable of continuing operations
against the United
States.
It is therefore not clear that a
conventional war with
countries that deliberately aided
the culprits will
achieve military victory. The
ability of the attackers
to draw sustenance from a wide array
of willing and
unwilling hosts may render them
impervious to the defeat
of a supporting country.
The military must systematically
attack an organization
that tries very hard not to have a
systematic structure
that can be attacked. In order for
this war to succeed,
the key capability will not be
primarily military force
but highly refined, real-time
intelligence about the
behavior of a small number of
individuals. But as the
events of the last few days have
shown, this is not a
strength of the American
intelligence community.
And that is the ultimate dilemma
for policymakers. If
the kind of war we can wage well
won't do the job, and
we lack the confidence in our
expertise to wage the kind
of war we need to conduct, then
what is to be done? The
easy answer -- to fight the battle
we fight best -- may not be the right
answer, or it may be only part of
the
solution.
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