InterAgency Journal

Vol. 12, No. 2 (2022)

The Simons Center

for Ethical Leadership and Interagency Cooperation

The Lewis and Clark Center

100 Stimson Ave., Suite 1149

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 66027

Ph: 913-651-0624 •Fax: 913-651-4519

Email: office@TheSimonsCenter.org

www.TheSimonsCenter.org

PUBLISHER

Roderick M. Cox

Col., U.S. Army, Ret.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Robert R. Ulin

Col., U.S. Army, Ret.

MANAGING EDITOR

John J. Nelson

Lt. Col., U.S. Army, Ret.

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Paige Cox

DESIGN/PRODUCTION

Mark H. Wiggins

MHW Public Relations and Communications

DIGITAL CONVERSION

Allen Press, Inc.

Lawrence, Kansas

Copyright 2022, CGSC Foundation, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this journal may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the CGSC Foundation, Inc.

FEATURES

Beyond Black Hawk Down: Revisiting U.S. Intervention in Somalia Over a Quarter Century Later

Chaveso Cook, Joseph McWilliams and Ivan Ivashchenko

Interagency Approach to Achieve Integrated Deterrence

Matthew T. Ventimiglia, Frank J. Klimas and Kevin W. Siegrist

The Many Dangers of Moral Antirealism

Anthony Lupo

Adversaries in the Altiplano: Strategic Competition in South America’s Lithium Triangle

Daniel Liebetreu

Artificial Intelligence: Winning the Talent Management Race

Yvette Kushmerick

Once an Advisor: How Security Force Assistance is Essential for the American Way of War and Deterrence in Strategic Competition

Michael Nilsen

Human Rights as an Army Special Operations Forces Tool to Compete with China in the Indo-Pacific

Leeann Whittson

Mutually Assured Survival: Deterring Inadvertent Conflict Escalation Through Strategic Restraint Signaling

Travis Zahnow

SIMONS CENTER EDITORIAL BOARD

Lt. Col. David A. Anderson, DBA, USMC Ret.

Professor, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College

Maj. Gen. Allen W. Batschelet, U.S. Army, Ret.

CEO and Co-Founder of Horizon Strategies

William J. Davis, Jr., Ph.D.

Associate Professor, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College

Col. G. Michael Denning, USMC Retired

Director, University of Kansas Graduate Military Programs

Col. William G. Eckhardt, J.D., U.S. Army, Ret.

Teaching Professor Emeritus, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law

Sr. Geospatial Intelligence Officer (Ret.) Ralph M. Erwin

Strategic Advisor, Tesla Government Inc.

Maj. Gary R. Hobin, U.S. Army, Ret.

Assistant Professor, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College

Col. Jack D. Kem, Ph.D., U.S. Army, Ret.

Dean of Academics, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College

Brig. Gen. Wendell C. King, Ph.D., U.S Army, Ret.

Former Dean of Academics, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College

Maj. Gen. Eugene J. LeBoeuf, U.S. Army, Ph.D.

Deputy Commanding General, U.S. Army Reserve Command

Col. Steven M. Leonard, U.S Army, Ret.

Program Director, MS-Business and Organizational Leadership, Kansas University

Lt. Col. James B. Martin, Ph.D., U.S Army, Ret.

Former Dean of Academics, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College

Lt. Col. Wilburn E. (Bud) Meador, Jr., USMC Ret.

Former Assistant Professor, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College

Gustav A. Otto, Ph.D.

Defense Intelligence Agency Liaison to Ottawa

Lt. Col. William T. Pugh, U.S Army, Ret.

Assistant Professor, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College

Lt. Col. Mark R. Wilcox, Ph.D., U.S. Army, Ret.

Associate Professor, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College

Lt. Col. James H. Willbanks, Ph.D., U.S. Army, Ret.

Professor Emeritus, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College

Lt. Col. Donald P. Wright, Ph.D., U.S. Army, Ret.

Deputy Director, Army University Press

From the Editor-in-Chief

With our 2022 Spring issue of the InterAgency Journal, we were very excited to once again be publishing our peer-reviewed journal for the community. The remainder of this year has proven exciting as well, as our programs have expanded and continued to mature.

The Simons Center continued it partnership with the Kansas City Chapter of the Association of the United Stated Army hosting the Arter-Rowland National Security Forum (ARNSF). With a membership consisting of executives and leaders in the Kansas City community, ARNSF events featured subject matter experts speaking a wide range of topics including Russian Military Capabilities, Space Warfare, Cultural Affairs, the INDOPACOM region, the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Executive Board.

Our Simons Center Fellows program has likewise expanded. We have been honored by Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Gordon B. “Skip” Davis, Jr., and then by Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Robert “Bob” Caslen who have agreed to share their wealth of knowledge and expertise by joining us as Senior Research Fellows. On Sept. 15, Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Davis, former NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Defense Investment provided his insights of the 2022 NATO Summit NATO’s new Strategic Concept in a special online presentation for our Fellows and ARNSF members. Similarly, as the war has continued to rage in Ukraine, Col. (Ret.) Matt Dimmick, the European Regional Program Manager for Spirit of America, provided a “Battlefield Update Briefing” on the war in Ukraine, live via Zoom from his hotel room in Moldova.

Our publishing efforts have also continued to grow. In July, Simons Center Fellow Lt. Col. Ken Segelhorst published an excellent InterAgency Paper on the famous Son Tay Raid. Culminating our Cold War Symposium project, our book is in the final editing stages and will feature not only scholarly research but personal insights and first-hand accounts of events occurring during the Cold War.

In addition to articles from the wider interagency community, this issue of the Interagency Journal contains several articles from Command and General Staff College students who participated in our Interagency Writing Award Competition. Maj. Anthony Lupo’s article on the dangers of moral antirealism was our 2021 winner. Maj. Daniel Liebetreu won the competition in 2022 with his article on strategic competition in the Lithium Triangle. In addition to Liebetreu’s article, we have several other excellent articles from the 2022 competition.

We thank you for being a reader of the InterAgency Journal. We look forward to any feedback you have on the Journal or our various programs. – RRU

Beyond Black Hawk Down:

Revisiting U.S. Intervention in Somalia Over a Quarter Century Later

by Chaveso Cook, Joseph McWilliams and Ivan Ivashchenko

October of 2021 marked the 28-year anniversary of the famed Battle of Mogadishu and U.S. intervention in Somalia during Operations Restore Hope and Gothic Serpent. Coinciding with the anniversary was a ceremony where almost 60 special operations troops involved in the battle had their awards upgraded to Silver Stars, the third highest combat award, with four others upgraded to the Distinguished Service Cross. On the heels of closing out the Afghan war, America’s so-called “Longest War,” U.S. intervention in Somalia can seem so far away. The forces involved originally intended to deploy to Somalia for a non-hazardous, non-violent mission in support of the United Nations (UN), but it certainly became something more.

At the beginning of the mission there was hope surrounding saving lives and replacing a corrupt system of food distribution. The undertaking, therefore, seemed simple. As part of a strategy to quell the civil war and famine that was ravaging the country, there was a need at first to disarm the civilian population. When the focus grew to include the arrest of lieutenants and soldiers of the Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aideed, the mission became increasingly thornier and special operations-centric in nature. Interagency cooperation became critical. As the deployment wore on underlying feudal politics, the likes of which involved clans that had been pitted against one another for a millennium, resulted in the U.S. Army’s largest firefight at that point since Vietnam. After the actions of October 3, 1993, the White House made the decision that “political factors rendered any option other than prompt withdrawal unattainable.”[1]

Lieutenant Colonel Chaveso “Chevy” Cook, Ph.D., U.S. Army, currently serves as the garrison commander for Fort Meade, Maryland. Cook draws on previous experiences as the speech writer for the Secretary of the Army, time in 3rd, 7th, and 8th Psychological Operations Battalions, service in the 82nd Airborne Division, and instructing at the United States Military Academy. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Center for Ethics in International Affairs, and the American Psychological Association.

Major Joseph McWilliams currently commands Company B, 7th Psychological Operations Battalion. He recently served as the G5 Plans Officer for the 5th Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group and has previously served in the 82nd Airborne Division. He holds a B.A. from Thomas Edison State University and has prior enlisted experience in 9th Psychological Operations Battalion.

Captain Ivan Ivashchenko is a U.S. Army Special Forces officer assigned to the Joint Multinational Readiness Center. He also served in 10th Special Forces Group, where he was an integral part of the Russian Deconfliction Cell in the Russian-Ukrainian war. His previous infantry experiences include time in the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Vicenza, Italy. Ivashchenko holds a B.S. from the U.S. Military Academy and is pursuing further education through King’s College, London.

Historian Niall Ferguson places Somalia...in what he termed as the axis of upheaval.

Historian Niall Ferguson places Somalia (as well as Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, Russia and Mexico) in what he termed as the axis of upheaval.[2] These states are plagued by a perfect storm of historical disaster and tumult: ethnic competition, economic difficulties, and empire collapse. The purpose here is to revisit the intervention in Somalia and shed light on the mission by presenting a new analysis of why the U.S. sent troops to Somalia as part of the UN peacekeeping operation. To comprehensively do so, a look at the historical background of Somalia is important, as is delving into UN intervention prior to the advent of American forces. Then, from an international relations perspective, two specific political theories, namely Hegemonic Stability Theory and Ethnic Nationalism Theory, will best explain the root causes for U.S. intervention.

Historical Context

Somalia became an independent nation in 1960, but this was short-lived as “just nine years later a military coup installed Mohammed Siad Barre as president.”[3] Barre’s presidential policies “included jailing, torturing and summarily executing anyone who did not like his radical socialist ideas.”[4] In 1977 Barre invaded Ogaden, a disputed region of Ethiopia populated largely by ethnic Somalis. At the same time, Barre broke ties with the U.S.S.R. in an attempt to establish his own dominion on the Horn of Africa and, in doing so, obtained military equipment from the U.S., the United Kingdom, and France.[5] Conflict abounded because of Barre’s policies, causing armed resistance movements to fight against Barre’s troops for decades.

A full-scale guerrilla war began in 1988. The conflicts “built to a crescendo in July 1989 in the city of Mogadishu, when Barre’s death squads slaughtered 450 Muslims demonstrating against the arrest of their leaders.”[6] Barre moved with his staff into the mountains and hid, knowing his days were numbered. After his downfall, the factional fighting to determine who would control the country began with an intense fervor. Somalia also had seen many years of famine that coincided with an ongoing struggle amongst factions and clans, as many other African nations had in the past. With its population brimming on the carrying capacity of the land, hunger and starvation again became key issues. Clan and sub-clan warfare quickly spread across Somalia. Further complicating these matters was the fact that weapons were “readily available to all factions, with weapons worth $9 billion coming from the U.S.S.R. between 1975 and 1989, and another $4 billion in arms coming from eighteen countries, including the U.S. and Libya, between 1985 and 1989.”[7]

At the onset of the UN’s intervention in Somalia there were some successes. UN-sponsored meetings brought in humanitarian aid, set up an arms embargo, and negotiated a ceasefire.[8] The UN first sent about fifty unarmed observers to Somalia. Civic leaders, clan elders, women’s groups, and other factions met for negotiations through UN facilitation. It has even been estimated that 100,000 Somali lives were saved as a result of this outside assistance.[9] For all intents and purposes, progress was being made. Eventually, however, the interagency effort began crumbling as observers, nongovernmental organization (NGOs), and workers could not safeguard food and other humanitarian aid, so a 500-man Pakistani peace-keeping battalion was brought in. A Civilian-Military Operations Center was also established, allowing for further coordination across NGOs, the Red Cross, local entities, and the UN.

There were many additional negative actions that complicated what became the story on the ground, however. While the UN tried to command and control from New York, relying on local authorities to approve troop movements, Mogadishu and other locales were tumultuous bastions of anarchy. Additionally, retired Admiral Jonathan Howe, appointed Deputy National Security Advisor to President Bush in 1992, was said to largely mishandle his authority as the UN envoy to Somalia.[10] Therefore, the UN effectively became unwieldy and less organized than is ideal to “respond effectively to the swiftly changing, highly volatile situations created by ethnic and regional conflicts” like that which was occurring in Somalia.[11] Tragically, twenty-four Pakistani troops were gunned down in June 1993. The passing of Resolution 837 shortly thereafter “had consequences that drew the U.S. directly into Somalia’s civil war.”[12] Despite some initial success, these critical points, among many others, are undoubtedly what brought the U.S. military fully into the mission with ground troops.

The U.S. began operating in Somalia as part of the UN humanitarian mission in 1992. The UN mandate was “to take appropriate action to establish throughout Somalia a secure environment for humanitarian assistance.”[13] The two main factions were divided by their allegiances; one group supported Ali Mahdi Mohammed and the other supported General Mohammed Farah Aideed. The factions, in their fighting over territory and power, seized control of the humanitarian aid, taking command of food shipments and supplies to the population. At that point it was estimated that 300,000 Somalis had died from starvation and another four and a half million people were threatened by severe malnutrition.[14] The danger of this mission to UN troops, particularly U.S. service members, was shown later in an After-Action Report by the 10th Mountain Division:

Somalia was a nation divided and torn apart by a civil war. Bandits ruled the major lines of communications. All supply lines were blocked by roadblocks to extort ‘tolls,’ and ambushes were a way of life. Twenty-four hours a day [U.S.] soldiers lived with the threat of being shot at, having a hand grenade thrown at them or receiving indirect-fire attacks.[15]

The U.S. began operating in Somalia as part of the UN humanitarian mission in 1992.

Somalia became a war zone, utterly disrupting the stability of the region. The neighboring countries, Kenya and Ethiopia, began feeling the effects prior to the UN intervention. Individuals fleeing Somalia ended up in these two countries who were already poverty stricken. The U.S., at the head of the UN intervention forces, invested its time (20 months), effort (24,000 U.S. Armed Forces), and resources ($240 million in assistance through food and equipment) into the Somali area of operations to build stability.[16] As shown, a host of factors caused both the Somali crisis and the UN involvement.

Theoretical Frameworks

To understand both UN and U.S. involvement in Operation Restore Hope, it is prudent to use the aforementioned historical perspective to inform our theoretical analysis. As theory drives analysis, U.S. involvement in Somalia will be analyzed henceforth through the lenses of Hegemonic Stability Theory (HST) and Ethnic Nationalism Theory (ENT). Two theories are chosen for this analysis because one shows an external view of Somalia at the international level, and one will show a view of Somalia from the internal level.

Hegemonic Stability Theory (HST) is the lens of choice as it states that a powerful hegemon will facilitate international stability by providing goods necessary to functioning in a non-functioning environment.

To start, an examination at the strategic level is important. At the strategic level, HST is the lens of choice as it states that a powerful hegemon will facilitate international stability by providing goods necessary to functioning in a non-functioning environment.[17] Hegemons create and finance international organizations to spread their ideals and values throughout the international system and to solidify their grasp on power. Only hegemons can afford to create international organizations because only they can finance them.[18] At the time the U.S. was recognized as a global hegemon, emerging victorious out of the Cold War.

There are a few assumptions associated with this theory. There must be a liberal economic ideology. The focus will be on absolute gains for the individual state (in this case the U.S.).[19] There is a corresponding creation of free riding states balance within the hegemonic system. Free riding states are those that thrive off the much more arduous work of the other states without putting in as much as they take out (in this case Somalia).[20] The beneficiary and benefactor relationship are lucrative for both. Not only do the smaller states thrive, but the hegemon is able to maintain the status quo which in turn enables it to retain the dominant status.[21]

A complementary analysis can be shown through ENT, which looks at the sub-systemic variables that play into a nation’s actions and inner workings.[22] As Kaufman, Parker, and Field state, “the sub-systemic lens suggests that international relations is best understood as the consequence of choice.”[23] The actors amongst the states can create a level of cooperation, disjunctiveness, and can sway the beliefs and actions of the people in a myriad of ways. These beliefs, especially nationalism, “affect their choice in the international system.”[24] Particularly, the ethnic component of this theory comes about when the nationalistic upheaval focuses individuals in on their particular background, clan, or group. Ethnic nationalism, as defined by Brown, is loyalty to an ethnic group through color, language, religion, region, or tribe.[25]

Within ENT there are three subordinate theories; conflictual modernization, primordialism, and constructivism.[26] Conflictual modernizationists argue that increased competition due to modern economic developments cause greater ethnic strife and violence.[27] Unlike conflictual modernists, primordialists focus on an individual’s self worth and ethnic or national association, regardless of economic status or political affiliations.[28] Lastly, constructivists believe conflict arises from arbitrary creation of ethnic identities.[29]

Along with the key concepts of these theories are the four areas of underlying causes for internal conflict; structural factors, economic/social factors, cultural/perceptual factors, and political factors, which were all very prominent in Somalia.[30] Structural factors consist of organizational weakened states, both too similar or too varied ethnic geography, and/or intra-state security concerns. Political factors consist of instances of elite politics, inter-group politics, discriminatory political institutions, or exclusionary national ideologies. Economic social factors come in the form of economic problems, discriminatory economic systems, and varied economic development and modernization. The last, cultural/perceptual factors, consists of problematic group histories and patterns of cultural discrimination.[31]

HST holds that hegemony provides order similar to a central government in the international system, thereby reducing anarchy deterring aggression. As ENT states that international relations is best understood from the consequences of choices, a perspective of ethnocentrism looks at the sub systemic variables that play into a nation’s inner workings. Tying HST and ENT together in this case, Somalia’s inner workings brewed anarchy and aggression. Interestingly, support needed from the UN (HST) further spurred clan warfare over that very UN assistance (ENT).

Theoretical Analysis

Hegemonic Stability Theory

To start with HST it must be established that the U.S. was indeed a political hegemony in the early 1990s. To do so, a look at the distraught situation in Somalia at the time and a comparison to the U.S. will shed some light. Aideed had gained an overpowering hand and had “stormed into the power vacuum, leading a coalition of thugs called the Somali National Alliance… pillaging [UN] humanitarian aid and selling it off for a profit, while cold-bloodedly murdering any and all who tried to interfere and stop him.”[32] Somalia was a war zone; the people were starving, while those in control were overseeing the starvation, the malnourished population was further ravaged at the hands of the clansmen.

The U.S., on the other hand, was coming off a key victory along with coalition forces in the Middle East during Desert Storm. The U.S. had been the leader on the ground, committing more than 500,000 troops in the Persian Gulf War, while the non-U.S. coalition forces equaled roughly 160,000, or 24 percent, of all forces.[33] This action, coupled with the fall of the U.S.S.R. at the end of the 1980s, put America at the forefront of all hegemons.

The U.S. was also experiencing a high upswing economically, having the largest unified surplus as a percent of GDP in years as the surplus [was] projected to be 2.5 percent of the GDP—the largest surplus as a ratio to the GDP since 1948.[34] UN intervention was the only way that the Somali people would have a viable chance at getting food. In turn, placing the U.S. at the head of the UN multinational force placed the focus on bringing order to the city of Mogadishu and the surrounding country of Somalia. The U.S.’s ability to deliver a public good as the leader of the UN’s intervention force following Resolution 837 further highlights its hegemonic status within the parameters of HST theory.[35]

The U.S.’s ability to deliver a public good as the leader of the UN’s intervention force following Resolution 837 further highlights its hegemonic status within the parameters of HST theory.

Made famous in the movie Black Hawk Down and the book by the same name by author Mark Bowden, the U.S. went to Somalia in July 1992 as part of Operation Restore Hope to reinstate international stability. After the UN presence in Somalia led to little disarmament and a myriad of attacks on the UN and its delegates, “the U.S. [became] the primary actor in the humanitarian and peace enforcement mission undertaken by the UN in Somalia.”[36] By September 1992 “it [became] clear that conditions were rapidly deteriorating in Somalia and that security for the relief convoys had become critical, requiring a larger force than had originally been anticipated.”[37] The U.S. took up the better part of “an extended manhunt to capture General Aideed for his alleged role in masterminding the June 5th ambush of 24 Pakistani [UN] peacekeepers.”[38] The U.S. mix of Task Force Ranger - comprising 10th Mountain Division Infantrymen, 3rd Ranger Battalion Rangers, Special Forces team members, select Delta operators and Navy SEALs – were the primary force on the ground in Somalia and were in charge of the UN humanitarian/peacekeeping mission.

There is no question that the U.S. deployed for a humanitarian mission to Somalia as part of the UN. The question becomes much more interesting when deciding whether or not it was to restore stability in the international arena. Doherty reported that “U.S. forces [had to] forcibly disarm the warring gangs, who made it nearly impossible for relief organizations to operate.”[39] The warring gangs had caused instability, but only locally. Despite this fact, any instability in the Horn of Africa, with its proximity to the shipping lanes of the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea which lead to the Suez Canal, as well as diplomatic ties to Kenya and Ethiopia, would force the hand of the U.S., as the hegemon, to stand in to bring about order.

Ethnic Nationalism Theory (ENT) states that if ethnic discrimination was happening in Somalia circa 1993, then ethnic conflict was bound to ensue.

Somalia had no large ties in trade to other countries, was not a major export of any significant goods, and was in the middle of more or less a civil war type conflict festered by its own independence thirty years prior. But, by being a country in a situation that could not help itself, it caused increased regional instability as the refugees and starving peoples either died or boiled over into Kenya and Ethiopia. These countries already had their own starvation problems, and bad would have turned worse if not for U.S. intervention.[40] The Somali situation also became an increasing interagency and international issue when Aideed began to interfere and control the UN shipments of aid to the people in crisis. Somalians began to believe that the U.S. would restore order, as Randall notes that reporting at the time stated that “U.S. troops are in Somalia to deliver food, but many Somalis expect them to rebuild a nation.”[41]

As the single hegemonic power in the international community, the U.S. deployed its forces to maintain liberal stability in the international system. As noted by Gilpin, a “hegemon must be able and willing to respond quickly to threats to the system.”[42] The U.S., after Somali attacks on UN workers became commonplace, decided to become the prime defender of humanitarianism and bring back social order to the grief stricken country, which shows the U.S. in hegemonic light. America responded quickly, bringing the forces to bear that would allow a return to both local and international stability.

Ethnic Nationalism Theory

Ethnic Nationalism Theory ENT states that if ethnic discrimination was happening in Somalia circa 1993, then ethnic conflict was bound to ensue. Brown states that “Somalia [had] been riven by clan warfare and a competition for power between and among local warlords.”[43] This tearing was between the clashing clansmen, who were of kin but separated themselves through ethnic nationalism. The clansmen were separated by their affiliation with a tribe, or in this particular case, clan. The clansmen were trying to control who was getting the food, and by doing so were practicing discrimination against their own countrymen.[44] This ethnic discrimination was brewing well before UN forces came to give aid, but once the aid arrived the discrimination turned to an unthinkable level.

Parts of the country were under the control of clan members, while in “the rest of the country, other armed men held sway-warlords jostling for position, bandits trying to make one last haul, bodyguards earning a final payday by betraying the people who had hired them for protection.”[45] These clansmen had been warring since the fall of Barre and his government. The warring was over everything, from control of the government, to use of land, to who had weapons and who did not.[46] The constant war and turmoil in Somalia had been a mark of many African countries. The state was weak, and, as Brown puts it, “if the state is weak or if it is expected to be weak the incentives for groups to make independent military preparations grow.”[47] The conflict that ravaged the country had all but torn Somalia apart.

Lastly, ENT states that ethnic conflict rises from discrimination. Discrimination continues to be a key issue in Somalia to this day. Somalia, as many African nations, has arbitrary lines for borders drawn during colonial times. These arbitrary lines cut across tribes and groups, causing much of today’s conflict. However, Brown states that “Somalia [was] the most ethnically homogeneous states in Africa.”[48] This homogeneity did slow the clashing of clansmen, as Somalia was highly broken down into clan regions.[49] These regions feverishly wanted to control the country after Barre’s fall. After extreme famine caught the eyes of the international community the warring clans sought to control the food and international aid. It was one way that the factions felt they could bring control in their country.

Ethnic conflict withered the country as the different clans started to discriminate based on what clans were aligned with. ENT states that “ethnic groups that [are] oppressed [begin] to assert themselves;” this was the case as the oppressed clans who were discriminated against got into a myriad of conflicts and skirmishes in Somalia in early 1991, 1992, and 1993.[50] Ethnic discrimination caused ethnic conflict. Moreover, such violence over resources reflects the conflictual modernization sub theory of ENT.

A Note on Operation Gothic Serpent

Gothic Serpent was a specific segment of Operation Resort Hope that garnered the most attention due to the special operations lore of the mission as well as Mark Bowden’s book that was made into a Ridley Scott movie of the same name. While it may be controversial, it should be noted that the mission that day was not to capture Aidid - Task Force Ranger’s mission on October 3-4 was focused on capturing several of his lieutenants and they did just that. The military objective set forth for Gothic Serpent was achieved, as 20 members of Aidid’s faction were taken into custody. Bowden himself stated that “in strictly military terms, Mogadishu was a success.”[51]

Task Force Ranger’s mission on October 3-4 was focused on capturing several of his lieutenants and they did just that.

Without a doubt the loss of life and number of critically wounded in such a short amount of time, alongside an abducted pilot and pictures of U.S. service members being drug through the streets, could not be perceived as any sort of military victory. However, when looked at objectively even with the tactical and political failures overlaid, the objectives of the mission itself were completed under harrowing circumstances. This is ultimately indicative of the resolve, perseverance, and spirit of the special operations community and other U.S. forces on the ground.

Somalia Today and Tomorrow

Present day Somalia carries with it many of the challenges it held prior to U.S. intervention, yet it has found a semblance of stability in several key areas. Whereas violent extremists are rampant, there has been a purposeful shift towards intra-state building in the last two decades. As a recognition of this shift and in efforts to assist as much as possible, the U.S. currently provides over $100 million in total foreign aid to Somalia.[52]

Over two decades after intervention the U.S. government officially recognized the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS) in its current configuration and has subsequently been supportive of the Somali government’s efforts to be inclusive of its federal member states.[53] Specifically, the U.S. fully supported the FGS position of constitutionally recognizing Somaliland and Puntland as autonomous member states. Currently there are six Federal Member States within Somalia – Puntland State of Somalia, Jubaland, Galmudug, Southwest State, Hirshabelle, and Somaliland.[54] Recognizing these areas helps distinguish and legitimize how much of both clan history and current political discourse will always be interwoven.

Furthermore, each state has used a level of cooperation between violent actors and regional elites to control these areas through the rule of law and political order.[55] These movements towards internal state building began prior to U.S. intervention but have progressed to their current configuration within the last decade or so. The U.S. relationship between all key players involved represents a significant change in the U.S. approach to Somalia since Operation Restore Hope.

Despite progress in certain areas of governance, violent extremist organizations remain a key threat to Somalia that must be addressed.

Despite progress in certain areas of governance, violent extremist organizations remain a key threat to Somalia that must be addressed. The specific aftermath of Operation Gothic Serpent had a profound effect on U.S. foreign policy both regionally and on the global stage. Commonly known as Somalia Syndrome, it refers to the U.S. approach to international intervention in the immediate aftermath of Gothic Serpent and for the remainder of the Clinton administration.[56] Following the U.S. withdrawal from the then stateless country, violent extremists began to consolidate power and take control.[57] Al Itihaad Al Islamiya was especially notorious, becoming a significant threat in the region and claiming responsibility for several attacks in East Africa. The group’s dissolution and the dispersion of their leadership led to the eventual formation of Al-Shabaab (AS).[58]

At present AS is the leading violent extremist organization in Somalia. AS, meaning “The Youth”, seeks to control territory within Somalia to establish a society based on Shariah law. Since the late 2000s, AS has had close ties to Al Qaeda (AQ), specifically Al Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM, or AQ in North Africa). Although based in Somalia, AS also conducts attacks in neighboring countries; one of their most notable attacks occurred in 2013 at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya. Whereas clan leaders like Aidid and Ali Mahdi were interested in asserting their clan interests and gaining power, AS, in contrast, promotes extremist anti-Western ideology. AS also has a political arm like what is seen with Hezbollah in Lebanon (though Hezbollah is Shiite based and Iranian backed). As a direct response to AS the FGS, with the assistance of African Union Mission in Somalia and local forces, have continued to make significant progress against AS.[59] Additionally, U.S. military forces are advising and assisting Somali National Army soldiers while they conduct operations to continue to combat AS. This cooperation is essential in securing the future of FGS and Somalia as a whole.

A major lesson of Operation Restore Hope, and of the Balkan conflicts that followed, is that humanitarian and refugee crises cannot be compartmentalized from their political causes. The international community can assist in two major ways: by separating big-picture concerns over “the war on terror” from Somalia’s domestic struggle for national reconciliation by fighting AS specifically, and by persuading neighboring Ethiopia and Eritrea to refrain from interfering in the conflict. In the end, there are certain circles that present an overall assessment that “countless lives were saved [because of U.S. intervention], and that violence and disorder was lessened to an extent that allowed for the possibility of [future] political reconciliation” as well as many of the current successes listed above.[60]

Lastly, any discussion of Somalia surely includes a broader look at the Horn of Africa and the tasks placed on our U.S. military organizations responsible today, United States Africa Command, Special Operations Command Africa, and Combined-Joint Task Force Horn of Africa based in Camp Lemonier, Djibouti. Furthermore, the Horn of Africa cannot be unlinked from the Arabian Peninsula and the connective ‘twin-like’ nature between Somalia and Yemen. Actions, be it progress, regression, or stagnation, will inevitably have multiplicative effects across both of these countries (and the aforementioned military organizations in the region) for a number of reasons.

First, neither Somalia or Yemen has been left to their own devices in modern history and it has been argued that foreign elements have always attempted to advance their own interests rather than that of Somalis. Second, a continuous air of corruption abounds, which is fueled (and in many ways funded) by an addiction to the amphetamine khat. Third, both governments are dominated by tribal and clan-based structures that preserve history via oral traditions that adhere to toxic narratives about other ethnic groups. Additionally, the rule of law is generally superseded by this tribal or clan social and political order, which leads to a zealous defense of tribal honor even if that means forfeiting their countries’ interests. Fourth, each have their own religious extremist groups and separatist movements who claim self-determination. And finally, both Somalia and Yemen have considerable natural resources (though they remain two of the poorest nations in the world). Undoubtedly, none of these effects make the future seem bright.

Final Thoughts

Given the debate about the close out of operations in Afghanistan, the actions Russia has taken in Ukraine, and the ever present threat of China in the Indo-Pacific (and beyond), there have been many calls to review U.S. involvement on the global stage. Dire situations, like mass starvation or ethnic conflict that may spillover to genocide, are conditions that are less likely to occur if creating stable and sustainable institutions remains a priority of the U.S., the UN, and ultimately other world leaders. Additionally, any intervention operations anywhere in the world “should not be undertaken without the reasonable expectation of firm political backing, stable field leadership, and accountability in the coordinating organization.”[61] Leaders must commit and have staying power while conducting actions that are also limited in time, scope, and proportionality. In each case, creative, holistic, and preventative measures must become the answer to difficult realities like those seen in Somalia.

Poole states that “the overall cost came to 32 killed in action, 172 wounded and $1.3 billion spent through 30 June 1994.”[62] He further concludes that the overall efforts in Somalia “succeeded as a short-term humanitarian mission but then failed as an attempt at nation-building and as an international venture in peace enforcement.”[63] Certainly, the experience of actions and operations in Somalia will likely continue to cast a long shadow due to the infamous October 3rd Battle of Mogadishu. Witnessing what many assess as imprecision and drift amongst U.S. and UN efforts, the objective in Somalia could be seen in retrospect as a constantly shifting target. However, in hindsight it is also believable that the complexities on the ground among all peoples, uniformed or not, were just a Somalian version of Churchill’s famed riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.[64]

...any intervention operations anywhere in the world “should not be undertaken without the reasonable expectation of firm political backing, stable field leadership, and accountability in the coordinating organization.”

Through an analysis of Operations Restore Hope and the background factors involved in Somalia since its independence in 1960, ENT explains most of the problems Somalia faced as a nation. In concert, HST also explains why international intervention was needed. The ethnic conflict, caused by the warring clans discriminating against each other through resource distribution, was the initiator of the international help. The food crisis which led to starvation further heightened the rift along the long existing clan fault lines. As the crisis worsened, ethnic and clan interference in the international supply of aid brought on the necessity for international intervention. In effect, the aspects of ENT paved a path for U.S. intervention in line with HST.

According to political scientist Kenneth Menkhaus, Somalia is “by far the longest-running instance of state collapse in the post-colonial era.”[65] Surely, American and even international policy may not completely change the fate of Somalia. However, aid, regional policy, and, if needed, intervention could “put regional partners, such as Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Djibouti, on a path to improved security, substantial counter-terrorist capabilities, and new economic development.”[66] The sacrifices just over a quarter century ago in Somalia were surely heavy, but their efforts continue to lay the foundation for the region’s future. IAJ

Notes

1Walter Poole, The Effort to Save Somalia, August 1992-March 1994 (DC: Joint History Office, Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2005), 70.

2Niall Ferguson, “The Axis of Upheaval,” Foreign Policy (September 2009).

3Mark Bowden, “Somalia: Good Intentions, Bad Result,” February 1, 1998, documentary video, from KR Video / Philadelphia Inquirer.

4Ibid.

5Poole.

6Bowden.

7Poole, p. 6.

8United States Institute of Peace, “Restoring Hope: The Real Lessons of Somalia for the Future of Intervention,” Special Report (1995): 12.

9Walter Clarke & Jeffrey Herbst, “Somalia and the future of humanitarian intervention,” Foreign Affairs (March/April 1996).

10Bowden.

11United States Institute of Peace, p. 1.

12Poole, p. 3.

13Martin Stanton, Somalia on $5.00 a Day. (Navato, CA: Presidio Press, Inc., 2001), 112.

14Phillip Dotson, “The successes and failures of the Battle of Mogadishu and its effects on U.S. foreign policy,” Channels: Where Disciplines Meet, 1(1) (2016): 179-200.

15U.S. Army Forces, Somalia – 10th Mountain Division, After Action Report Summary (1993): 19.

16Herman Cohen, “Update on Operation Restore Hope,” U.S. Department of State Dispatch, Vol. 3, Issue 51 (1992): 896-98.

17Robert Gilpin, “The Theory of Hegemonic Stability,” in Understanding International Relations: The Value of Alternative Lenses, 4th edition, eds. Daniel Kaufman, Jay Parker, and Kimberly Field (West Point, NY: McGraw-Hill Companies, 1999).

18Ibid.

19Ibid.

20Ibid.

21Mohammed Noor Mat Yazid, “The Theory of Hegemonic Stability, Hegemonic Power and International Political Economic Stability,” Global Journal of Political Science and Administration 3(6), (2015): 67-79.

22Daniel Kaufman, Jay Parker, and Kimberly Field, eds., Understanding International Relations: The Value of Alternative Lenses, 4th edition, (West Point, NY: McGraw-Hill Companies, 1999).

23Ibid., p. 533.

24Ibid., p. 534.

25Michael Brown, “The Causes of Internal Conflict: An Overview,” in Understanding International Relations: The Value of Alternative Lenses, 4th edition, eds. Daniel Kaufman, Jay Parker, and Kimberly Field (West Point, NY: McGraw-Hill Companies, 1999).

26Kevin Parsneau, “Ethnic Conflict in Theory and Ethnic Nationalism Among the Kurdish People in Iran, Iraq, and Turkey” (masters thesis, The University of Montana, 1996), 1-164, ProQuest.

27Ibid.

28Ibid.

29Ibid.

30Brown.

31Ibid.

32Mike Durant, In the Company of Heroes, (New York, NY: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2003), 2.

33Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA), “Special Report: The U.S. Army in Operation Desert Storm,” AUSA Institute of Land Warfare, SR-1991, (1991).

34Clayton Chun, Gothic Serpent: Black Hawk Down, Mogadishu 1993, (Botley, OX: Osprey Publishing, 2012).

35“Somalia,” General Assembly Resolution 837 (S/RES837), last modified June, 1993, http://unscr.com/en/resolutions/837.

36Lois Davis et al., Army Medical Support for Peace Operations and Humanitarian Assistance, (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1996), 52.

37Ibid.

38Ibid., p. 59.

39C. Doherty, “The Question at The Hearing: How Do We Get Out?” Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, Vol. 50, Issue 50, (1992): 389.

40Bowden.

41Everett Randall, “Strangers in a Strange Land,” U.S. News & World Report, Vol. 113, Issue 24, (1992): 60.

42Gilpin, p. 440.

43Brown, p. 615.

44Bowden.

45Russell Watson, “Troops to Somalia?” Newsweek, Vol. 120, Issue 25, (1992): 24.

46Stanton.

47Brown, p. 614.

48Ibid.

49William Sims, Somalia Diary, (San Antonio, TX: Burke Publishing Company, 1999).

50Brown, p. 614.

51Dotson, p. 185.

52“Somalia – Complex Emergency. Fact Sheet #4, FY 2018,” United States Agency for International Development, last modified 2018, https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1866/somalia_ce_fs04_07-13-2018.pdf.

53“Somalia,” U.S. Department of State Bureau of African Affairs, last modified 2018, https://www.state.gov/countries-areas/somalia/.

54“Somalia,” Central Intelligence Agency Fact Book, last modified 2020, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/so.html.

55Andrew Duffield, “When Do Rebels Become State-Builders? A Comparative Case Study of Somaliland, Puntland, And South-Central Somalia,” Bildhaan: An International Journal of Somali Studies 13(5), (2014).

56Robert Patman, “The Roots of Strategic Failure: The Somalia Syndrome and Al Qaeda’s Path to 9/11,” International Politics 52(1), (2015): 89-109.

57Ibid.

58Jeremy Weinstein, “Africa’s Revolutionary Deficit,” Foreign Policy, No. 161, (2007): 70-71.

59Paul Williams, “Stabilizing Somalia: The African Union Mission and The Next Stage in The War Against Al-Shabaab,” The RU.S.I Journal 159(2), (2014): 52-60.

60United States Institute of Peace, “Restoring Hope: The Real Lessons of Somalia for the Future of Intervention,” Special Report (1995): 14.

61Ibid., p. 2.

62Poole, p. 69.

63Ibid.

64“Churchill’s Definition of Russia Still Wrings True,” New York Times, last modified 2008, https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/01/world/europe/01iht-letter.1.14939466.html.

65Kenneth Menkhaus, “The Somali Catastrophe, Bigger Than the Horn—And Not Over Yet,” Current History: A Journal of Contemporary World Affairs, Vol. 106, Issue 700 (2007): 195.

66John Gibson, Theoretical Approaches to Dealing with Somalia, (Fort Leavenworth, KS, Creative Media Partners, LLC., 2012): 8.

Interagency Approach

to Achieve

Integrated Deterrence

by Matthew T. Ventimiglia, Frank J. Klimas and Kevin W. Siegrist

The threats to national security as articulated in the 2021 Interim National Security Strategic Guidance (INSSG) have not changed since the 2018 National Security Strategy (NSS). However, the 2022 National Defense Strategy (NDS) will execute the strategy in a new way known as integrated deterrence. The Pentagon issued a fact sheet explaining the Department of Defense (DoD) will advance national strategy goals in three ways: integrated deterrence, campaigning, and actions that build enduring advantages. Integrated deterrence combines the United States’ best efforts to maximum effect across warfighting domains, the spectrum of conflict, and other instruments of national power to strategic effect.[1]

President Biden stated that the military would not be the leading instrument of power in foreign policy in the INSSG, meaning that unified action will harness the three remaining tools in a manner that has not been achieved in the recent past.[2] The president’s approach to strategic action is illustrated in the current conflict in Ukraine. Instead of leading with military action of U.S. forces confronting Russian forces far from home, other tools of the United States’ national power have been employed; diplomatic lead by unifying NATO, economically enacted sanctions against Russia, informed and rallied other nations to support sanctions as well as enact their own, and counter Russian disinformation and military deception before it could be released to open sources. Congress passed legislation for the President’s signature granting aid to Ukraine in the form of funding, military equipment, weapons, and ammunition. The military contribution provided targeting, intelligence, and training to Ukraine’s forces from outside the war zone. In short, a strategic effect was employed against Russia that was synchronized across the agencies of the government using the instruments of national power, and most importantly it reduced the risk and expense of committing American lives allowing this resource to remain ready for other tasks. While not yet complete, U.S. action in response to the conflict in Ukraine is a sound example of integrating all instruments of national power. The U.S. tends to do this best in crisis. It must learn from recent events so it can apply the same integrated effects proactively to achieve deterrence and be effective at campaigning and building enduring advantages.

Captain Matthew T. Ventimiglia, U.S. Navy, currently serves on the staff of the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation, Office of the Secretary of Defense. He earned a B.S. in Physics from the United States Naval Academy in 2000 and is enrolled in an Engineering Management Master’s Degree program at Old Dominion University. Prior to his current assignment, Ventimiglia served as the Executive Officer on the USS Ronald Reagan, he commanded VAW-115 (an E-2C Hawkeye squadron), served in multiple Hawkeye squadrons and on multiple aircraft carriers, and served at the Navy Personnel Command.

Lieutenant Colonel Frank J. Klimas, U.S. Air Force, currently serves as the Chief of Joint Integration at Air Force Element, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and is an assistant professor in the Department of Joint, Interagency, and Multinational Operations. He earned a B.S. in Speech Communication (Public Relations) and was a distinguished graduate of Air Force ROTC from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois in 1999. He also earned an M.B.A. in Public Policy and Planning from the University of New Mexico in 2009, and an M.A. in Security Studies (Middle East), Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, in 2012.

Lieutenant Colonel Kevin W. Siegrist, U.S. Army, is the Mission Assurance Branch Chief for U.S. Northern Command, Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado. He was commissioned through United States Military Academy in 2002 earning a B.S. in Civil Engineering. He also earned an M.S. in Engineering Management at the University of Missouri-Rolla, Rolla, Missouri, in 2006 and is a professionally licensed engineer in Missouri. Prior to his current position, Siegrist was the commander of 52nd Brigade Engineer Battalion, 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colorado.

The twenty-first century great power competition requires an innovative approach to strategic problems. As seen in the above example, integrating the instruments of national power has never been more critical to the national security of the U.S. than it is today, but it may also be the most challenging part of the NDS to implement. With the speed at which information exchanges, fostering the conditions for increased gray zone conflict and greater influence by non-state actors, proactive integration of all instruments of national power through improved interagency coordination is essential to advance national security. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is the pacing challenge for the U.S. not only in the Indo-Pacific but in every combatant command (CCMD) around the world. Checking PRC expansion in the Indo-Pacific requires a multinational military effort, but building the coalition demands more than military forces organized around opposition to China’s military. For integrated deterrence to work, all instruments of national power - diplomatic, informational, military, and economic (DIME) - need to be consistently synchronized in coordinated strategic action across the government to deter PRC expansion and activities, respond to disinformation, and apply economic pressures. However, the interagency in its current state is not agile enough to implement the full-court press needed in integrated deterrence. Current interagency organizations and authorities are not optimized for a whole-of-government approach to achieve integrated deterrence as articulated by the National Defense Strategy.

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is the pacing challenge for the U.S. not only in the Indo-Pacific but in every combatant command (CCMD) around the world.

This article does not seek to redefine the entire relationship of the interagency with the combatant commanders (CCDRs) but limits its scope to close the coordination gap among U.S. Government agencies enabling DIME influences in support of integrated deterrence. While JP 3-08 defines interagency as “Of or pertaining to United States Government agencies and departments, including DoD”, we define interagency in this paper as the federal government organizations and departments that coordinate the instruments of national power (DIME) resulting in a whole-of-government effect. The intent of our research is to increase cooperation amongst agencies in harmony with a single strategy, as opposed to departmental perspectives and silos, to implement a cohesive system to enable coordinated action at lower levels. Looking through a lens of doctrine, authorities and organization, and culture, this article analyzes challenges to interagency coordination and proposes actionable recommendations.

The interagency tends to work best during crises when priorities are clear; and focus is strong.

Doctrine

As of the writing of this article, regarding the conflict in Ukraine, Russia has re-examined its strategy to identify what aspects of its instruments of national power (in addition to military action) can effectively achieve the desired end state. Russia is capitalizing on its ability to manage information and its economy while balancing diplomacy to regroup and gain momentum to continue operations against Ukraine.[3] China’s ongoing expansion and worldwide influence rely heavily on the whole-of-government approach to meet its strategic objectives resulting in significant growth of economic power and influence. Defined in the 2022 NDS (and implied in the 2021 Interim NSS), the requirement for interagency cooperation and a whole-of-government approach is necessary to achieve integrated deterrence against the great powers of Russia and China to ensure the strategic objectives of security, prosperity, and the American way of life are met.

While the challenges outlined above have been studied at length, the impact of less-than optimal interagency operations on our national security is heightened in our strategy’s new, integrated deterrence approach. The interagency tends to work best during crises when priorities are clear; and focus is strong. There are many references to interagency cooperation in several Joint Publications, but two dedicated doctrinal publications the DoD uses to operationalize its interoperability among U.S. Government federal workforces are Joint Publication 3-08 (JP 3-08), Interorganizational Cooperation, and a supplement to that volume the Joint Guide for Interagency Doctrine. Both documents discuss civilian government agencies and non-governmental organizations the military might team up with in crisis operations and parts of the government that can support or enable military operations in domestic and international operations. Both documents also articulate strategic direction documents like the NSS and NDS that help frame whole-ofgovernment cooperation. Doctrine provides a common language, a framework, that enables organizations to improve their planning and coordination. However, this commonality is typically within a department, not between departments, as highlighted by the 1,700 pages of interagency definitions in the United States Government Compendium of Interagency and Associated Terms.[4] Continuing to use the two most prominent players in foreign policy and security as an example of the challenges associated with interagency coordination, the DoD and the State Department, there are urgent reasons to improve the synchronization between those doctrines, especially in the areas of planning and logistics to increase efficiency and unity of effort. Doctrine tends to orient the organization toward operationalizing its strategy. DoD joint doctrine allows the different services to speak a more common language resulting in a better shared understanding and force employment to achieve national objectives. It’s time for that same concept to take hold between the interagencies.

The current DoD joint doctrine on interagency coordination is written to enable civilian agencies to support a CCDR’s efforts to solve a specific problem in a defined contingency for a limited amount of time. It does exactly what it is designed to do, but interagency coordination in integrated deterrence needs something different. For example, JP 3-08 provides a framework for military leaders and staff to work within the framework of a whole-ofgovernmental approach. The doctrine specifically addresses interagency coordination and planning, including an organizational structure of the Joint Interagency Task Forces (JIATF) as an element for coordination and planning. The military’s joint doctrine for interagency coordination still ties the responsibilities back to a CCMD as the lead, in coordination with the ambassadors and the country teams. DoD leads the interagency in implementing doctrine and mandatory professional military education; however, for integrated deterrence to work, the rest of the interagency needs to develop complementary interagency doctrine and increase its training and education.

Authorities and Organization

The president is the central authority to implement a whole-of-government approach to achieve strategic direction. Congress also has a role in strategic action through budgeting and granting of authorities through legislation. Still, integrated deterrence starts with and is led by the president, who is advised by the National Security Council (NSC) in accordance with the authorities granted by law. These authorities and responsibilities are specified in Title 22 of the U.S. Code (Foreign Relations) for the DoS and Title 10 U.S. Code (Armed Services) and further defined in the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the DoD. The NSC’s authority is contained in Title 50 U.S. Code (War and National Defense), chapter 44 (National Security), Subchapter I (Coordination for National Security). The National Security Directive (NSD) allows the president to organize the desired council for advice on policy and implementation and reflects much of how the NSC is structured. The “NSC system performs two distinct functions; advising the president in regard to national security matters and assisting the president in integrating domestic, foreign, and military policies to achieve national security objectives.”[5] In other words, the president organizes and tasks the council based on his or her own preferences for national security versus domestic policy. The president even has the authority to reorganize the NSC as President Obama did in 2009 by merging the Homeland Security Council and NSC into a single National Security Staff, but this was returned to the present configuration in 2014.[6]

...integrated deterrence starts with and is led by the president...

The NSC normally consists of senior members of departments and agencies having effect on U.S. national security, but it is a wholly political organ that can be contentious despite the close relationship senior members might have with the president because pressures from their agencies can influence the dialog. Over the decades, the NSC structure has adapted to the desires of the presidents with one key challenge facing political appointee members of the NSC as they have “the responsibility to ensure that the president’s guidance is adhered to, and they are the department’s or agency’s champion to Congress and the White House. If they wish to be respected in their department or agency, they must challenge the president. If they wish to be trusted by the president, they must challenge their department or agency.”[7] The NSC advises the president on forming policy and carries out decisions. The organizational structure of the NSC system uses several committees and subcommittees, such as the Interagency Policy Committees (IPC) for policy implementation. The IPCs “provide policy analysis for consideration by the more senior committees of the NSC system and ensure timely responses to decisions made by the President.”[8]

The two models for the NSC system are the presidential and secretarial models, which determines if the president leads the NSC system or delegates the leadership to the Secretary of State.[9] This matters in whole-of-government effectiveness. The president often leads crisis management, so the council serves as the de facto lead element of the interagency. However, the Department of State is the lead department for foreign policy and “the secretary is the principal representative of U.S. policies to foreign and domestic audiences, chief negotiator, and chief executive officer charged with the long-term health of the department.”[10] The Secretary of State has more effect in diplomacy-led efforts but lacks the executive control of the president for action across the entire federal government. Regardless of which model the president prefers in the NSD, this places the State Department as the lead agency for interagency coordination in foreign policy. Secretaries of other agencies designated to meet national strategy requirements are aligned with the Secretary of State on the NSC, but “only the president sits atop of the departments and agencies of government, and the national security council system [is] the president’s principal mechanism for achieving a unifying national security policy and overseeing its implementation.”[11] The national strategy will have a stronger effect if it is synchronized across the government, and while the NSC has influence in decision-making it cannot control all the tools of national power effectively. The president is the only person who can prioritize and re-prioritize efforts for the executive branch and seek authorities from the legislative branch, and integrated deterrence cannot reach its full whole-of-government effects without improving coordination in the interagency below the NSC level. The agencies and their action officers need to understand each other’s capabilities and processes to work together better.

Unless the interagency takes tangible steps to better work together, the differences between the DoD and the State Department implementation of foreign policy will continue to grow...

The State Department is the lead for foreign policy as discussed earlier, but over the past two decades those authorities and responsibilities shifted from the State Department to DoD through the CCMDs. The Defense Department usurped all other national tools of DIME because CCMDs controlled vast resources that could be quickly deployed, sustained, and controlled. More importantly, the CCMDs exercised national strategy through a regionally-focused mindset. “This trend underlies a significant expansion of DoD direct engagements with foreign security forces and an accompanying increase in DoD’s role in foreign policy decision-making.”[12] Unless the interagency takes tangible steps to better work together, the differences between the DoD and the State Department implementation of foreign policy will continue to grow over time, making a whole-of-government approach more challenging to implement. The primacy of DoD may in part be resource driven but it could also be process driven. “Abroad, [the State Department] leads at the country level under the authority of the ambassador through the country team, while Defense leads at the regional level under the authority of the CCDR.”[13] This could be an indication that military power took the lead in foreign policy because it was the instrument of national power best structured and process-driven to translate effects from national strategy down to host-nation agency level. The State Department is currently not organized to achieve the same effects. ”One ambassador lost his job when he tried to exert control over drone strikes from the country in which he served as the president’s personal representative.”[14] Along with authorities for regional coordination and conflicting agency agendas within country teams, the different organizational layouts between the two largest departments that implement foreign policy result in additional challenges. “Country-by-country execution of foreign policy by U.S. ambassadors may not always be the most effective or successful approach,” due to the complicated nature of how state, humanitarian, and economic issues often cross sovereign boundaries. [15] Clearly, the DoD has power projection beyond anything the State Department can provide, but without properly formed and implemented strategic policies and documents, military power is the wrong tool for the job. The State Department leads the president’s foreign policy portfolio, but diplomatic soft power can be outgunned by the speed and capacity of military hard power. The country-by-country focus of one department compared to the geographical focus of another is discordant. “The center of gravity for State Department-DoD interaction is with the geographic and functional CCMDs,” equates to a lack of a common effort for whole-of-government understanding within the U.S. and in coordination with allies.[16] For the DoD to advance its goals as stated in the 2022 NDS fact sheet using integrated deterrence, the department must coordinate all instruments of national power at the interagency level to better work together. To achieve that goal, they will need to have more people in their ranks who understand each other’s processes and missions and standardize where they can.

Another key indicator of issues facing the U.S. government’s ability to effectively operate under the umbrella of whole-of-government policy is how the budget is not mutually supportive to resource policy. One of the key hindrances to ideal interagency coordination is that each agency fights for as many dollars as it can for its agency and budget priorities are not always synchronized with national strategy across the interagency. CCDR influence grew, especially Special Operations Command as steady-state operations increased over time, “as we fought the war on terror primarily in military operations with little oversight or control by individual chiefs of mission or State as DoD’s security cooperation authorities were ... significantly modified in the FY2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).”[17] Pooling the resources for some foreign policy instruments across the interagency would incentivize collaboration (and value it in dollars). Former Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, attempted to reinforce the State Department as the lead to gain efficiency toward a common understanding. Doing so

“would involve pooled funds set up for security capacity building, stabilization, and conflict prevention. Both the State Department and the Defense Department would contribute to these funds, and no project could move forward without the approval of both agencies... it would create incentives for collaboration between different agencies of the government, unlike the existing structure and processes left over from the Cold War, which often conspire to hinder true whole-of government approaches.”[18]

One of the key hindrances to ideal interagency coordination is that each agency fights for as many dollars as it can for its agency...

It was not until Goldwater-Nichols that the DoD began to embrace the significance of joint operations in earnest because of the forcing mechanism of law. Aligned with secretaries who have competing demands of policy between the NSC supporting the President and their respective departments, competing budgets for departments also do not instill a unifying desire to achieve whole-of-government solutions for implementing the president’s NSS through integrated deterrence.

...a growing number of the non-DoD interagency personnel have little to no experience working with the military.

Culture

As we analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the present-day interagency system, we understand that the cultures of governmental departments have shaped how strategy is executed more than any single factor. It is also interesting to note that oftentimes how a department is organized and funded can influence its culture. It is well known that each organization in the interagency has its own culture and that often these cultural differences challenge coordination. One example of an organization influencing cultural differences is between the DoD and the State Department regarding command and control (C2). Individual nation-state sovereignty drives the state-by-state nature of much of our foreign diplomacy, while the unified command plan and the nature of war drive regional military responsibilities. Particularly at the tactical and operational level, the DoD is better oriented toward regional matters whereas the State Department is better oriented toward nation-state matters. While also discussing organization in culture may appear redundant due to earlier discussion in authorities and organization, the cultural issue is that these differences often manifest themselves in modestly separate ways of approaching and thinking about problems. “The risk today—in a policy context defined by great power competition —is that we will revert to prioritizing country-specific policies, however well-intentioned, without seeing the bigger picture. China sees the big picture. So does the U.S. military’s geographic command structure. “One Middle Eastern embassy’s integrated country strategy is no match for Central Command’s theater campaign plan.”[19] While these cultural differences are often a source of friction, we must embrace the friction and strive to build teamwork at the tactical and operational levels. Another source of friction is that a growing number of the non-DoD interagency personnel have little to no experience working with the military. Ambassador Larry Butler, a veteran foreign service officer and former chief of mission, explained in a recent interview that the relationship between DoD and State Department action officers has much room for improvement saying, “you can‘t surge trust if you don‘t have it.[20] Increased exposure among the interagency can help build this trust and make our differences a strength vice weakness.

The last part of the culture challenges we want to address is the professional development tied to each department’s ability to address interagency coordination. Departments need to have cultures that enable them to speak common languages and value the necessity of professional development and an understanding to work together through planning, a shared understanding, and shared goals. Butler’s Creeping Foreign Policy Militarization or Creeping State Department Irrelevance? offers recommendations to attend training with DoD service schools, changing the Foreign Service Officer promotion system to reward military assignment, and advises chiefs of mission to visit the U.S. military headquarters in their countries (division, corps, and HHQ) if they exist. The military has a great infrastructure to educate, and importantly the education includes the areas of diplomacy, instruments of national power, and other high-level non-military centric topics which are critical to understand interagency coordination. Since the DoD has the most capacity among the interagencies in education, the interagency should look to further utilize this resource by increasing attendance and the DoD reciprocates where there are resources and opportunities. Increasing education will not only improve synchronization across the interagency, but it will also serve as a foundation for consistent strategic decision-making that incorporates all instruments of national power.

Recommendations

We primarily attacked recommendations that did not require significant organizational change because 1) previous efforts appear to have fallen short due to the scope being too large, 2) actual implementation is more likely with simple recommendations, and 3) we recognize that change will only reduce the cultural biases within each department/agency, it will not eliminate it. Our recommendations put most of the responsibility on the DoD because 1) DoD is the only department with Title 10 responsibilities, 2) the DoD budget, manning, and resources provide some flexibility for reallocation to achieve end states, and 3) its doctrine is a key part of its culture and already addresses interagency planning and coordination.

Using the lens of doctrine, authorities and organizational structures, and culture, we assessed the strengths and challenges of our current foreign policy processes through the combination of agencies and departments working together to achieve a common goal. The power of the American government and people is unsurpassed when brought together towards a common objective, such as how the government was transformed into a national response to the September 11th attacks and how the government was united in response in support of Ukraine. That common objective is defined and articulated by the President in the INSSG. The operational environment of today’s world reinforces the need for the American government to make a change and to stay relevant in an ever-changing environment. Previous recommendations as mentioned in the 2014 Atlantic Council article, have included multiple steps across departments and agencies, and while sound recommendations, they have proven difficult to implement.[21] In our recommendations we capitalize on the current system and organizations to increase the feasibility of the changes being implemented. Each department or agency has a part of this solution, but the DoD is particularly invested as it spends the most dollars and lives when interagency policy is not optimized. Among the recommendations, due to size and budget, there is a common, intentional theme of bringing the DoD to the interagency. This is intended to increase the feasibility and urgency of process improvement.

...change will only reduce the cultural biases within each department/agency, it will not eliminate it.

Our recommendations

The first recommendation is to align each department and agency’s strategy to the INSSG, to include how it will integrate with other instruments of national power which will synchronize prioritization across the interagency. This must be done proactively instead of waiting for the next national crucible event to make effective change.

Next, each department or agency shall establish clear guidance and mechanisms to affect interagency doctrine that standardizes training, planning, and execution, the foundations of which shall be common through the departments and agencies that employ instruments of national power.

Focusing on the effectiveness of people, the next recommendation is to fund and highly value (i.e. through promotions) professional military education of sister departments and agencies with DoD taking the lead and having the authority to enforce this requirement. There is already some cross-training between departments, but currently, outside of Special Operations Command, it is often ineffective and minimal.

The next recommendation is for the interagency to establish an interagency internship program to make cultural differences an asset. The focus on internships or liaison officers compared to the few current full exchange assignments is because an internship or liaison officer can be targeted with immediate reinvestment when returned to their parent department. These would be nominally one year, at the same location as the current assignment, and related to a current job or future position within the parent department to build an appreciation for other instruments of national power brought to bear prior to and during conflict. DoD should lead by sending DoD to the other agencies due to its capacity and requirement to understand the interagency culture to achieve security objectives.[22] The shorter duration, compared to a full interagency assignment, also increases interagency exposure without a change in manpower. Even increasing much shorter interagency engagements such as the Preparation of the Environment course (at U.S. Special Operations Command) and the Interagency Communications Course (Joint Special Operations Command) will have high return on investment in bridging our cultures to increase teamwork.

Furthermore, in all interagency operations, clear and concise memorandums of agreement need to be drafted to articulate supported and supporting relationships to provide the structure required for sound execution. This adds structure and clarity within the interagency but also provides adaptability and flexibility to adjust to the problem and operating environment.

A more systematic approach would be for the CCMD to have a way to influence the other parts of national power at a more senior level. The current structure at each CCMD has a permanent Political Advisor (POLAD) and interagency working groups, such as JIATFs, which are temporary in nature and limited in scope to address interagency coordination. To achieve this more permanent and higher level of interagency coordination, we recommend implementation of the structure shown in Figure 1 (page 27) at the CCMD which was recommended in “All Elements of National Power” from 2014. The organization under the civilian deputy is akin to a standing JIATF, to facilitate proactive integrated deterrence and merely reactive crisis response.

Embracing strategic effects using the instruments of national power is exercised through the CCMD does not seek to duplicate efforts, nor does it superintend keeping the DoD the dominant agency of foreign policy but seeks to strengthen the best attributes of the military C2 systems and philosophies. In this way, integrated deterrence is a combatant command-level activity enabling decentralized execution of strategic effects. For example, the strategic influences of Russia and China are not confined to U.S. European Command (USEUCOM) and U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) respectively. These two countries have presence in every CCMD around the globe. A good example of this is U.S. Africa Command (USAFRICOM). Here, Russia has a legacy of activities from the Soviet Union’s support of communist regimes and China’s growth in economic and defense ventures now exceeds that of the United States. USAFRICOM’s decentralized execution of integrated strategic effects through all domains of DIME supported by USEUCOM and USINDOPACOM are coordinated through the interagency coordination authorities in all three commands. This enables agile strategic action in the field yet still allows C2 from the NSC.

Figure 1. Recommended Restructuring Option: Coordination Authority[23]

To ensure that the INSSG is implemented across the interagency, these proposed recommendations must be enforced through the budget and law. We must hold ourselves accountable through budget apportionment in the areas of every department’s doctrine and professional education, interagency exchange, and promotion incentives if we are to effectively execute a whole-of-government approach.[24] A portion of each agency’s budget shall be allocated for interagency teaming education and proper execution is required to receive the money. Enforcement via law establishes requirements for who and how many members of each agency receive the education while linking it to mandatory career progression. Furthermore, departments would be required to provide a semi-annual tactical level debrief and a quadrennial strategic level debrief on organizational execution to Congress to establish interagency accountability and institutional learning. If we do not keep score (via these debriefs) in the attempts at continuous process improvement among the interagency, future leaders will continue to discuss these problems for the decades to come and we’ll be challenged to effectively implement our national strategy.

Conclusion

The evidence shows one perspective of a complicated issue. The interagency organizations and authorities, most of which focus on domestic affairs, are not prepared to implement the whole-of-government effort needed to deter Russia and China. Integrated deterrence as articulated by the current NDS is backstopped by our nuclear forces, but running to the backstop leaves no good choices.

While these challenges have been studied at length, the impact of less-than-optimal interagency operations on our national security is heightened in our new, integrated deterrence strategy. The current way of civilian and military integration through interagency coordination groups and military-led JIATFs needs to be aligned to the new strategy to face the twenty-first century threats and great power competition. The interagency comes together to work best during a crisis when priorities are clear, and focus is strong.

With the reasonable adjustments outlined here, focusing on organizational and culture improvements enforced through budget, we can achieve crisis level interagency effects proactively, ahead of conflict. IAJ

Notes

1“Fact Sheet: 2022 National Defense Strategy,” Department of Defense. 2022, 2.

2White House, Interim National Security Strategic Guidance (Washington, DC: White House, 2021), https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/NSC-1v2.pdf.

3Jack Watling et al., Operation Z The Death Throes of an Imperial Delusion, RUSI Special Report (London, UK: Royal United Services Institute, 2022), 1-26.

4United States Government Compendium of Interagency and Associated Terms, a non-official guide to Department Dictionaries and other terminology sources, (Washington, DC: 2018), https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/dictionary/repository/interagency_associated_terms.pdf?ver=2018-01-02-104007-367.

5Robert D. Worley, Orchestrating the Instruments of Power: A Critical Examination of the U.S. National Security System (Lincoln: Potomac Books, an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press, 2015), 350.

6“NSC Staff, the Name Is Back! So Long, NSS,” The White House, last modified February 10, 2014, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2014/02/10/nsc-staff-name-back-so-long-nss.

7Robert D. Worley, Orchestrating the Instruments of Power: A Critical Examination of the U.S. National Security System (Lincoln: Potomac Books, an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press, 2015), 295.

8“Memorandum on Renewing the National Security Council System” (official memorandum, Washington D.C. February 4, 2021, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/DCPD-202100121/pdf/DCPD-202100121.pdf, 2.

9Robert D. Worley, Orchestrating the Instruments of Power: A Critical Examination of the U.S. National Security System (Lincoln: Potomac Books, an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press, 2015), 363.

10Robert D. Worley, Orchestrating the Instruments of Power: A Critical Examination of the U.S. National Security System (Lincoln: Potomac Books, an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press, 2015), 303.

11Robert D. Worley, Orchestrating the Instruments of Power: A Critical Examination of the U.S. National Security System (Lincoln: Potomac Books, an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press, 2015), 342.

12U.S. Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, U.S. Security Assistance and Security Cooperation Programs: Overview of Funding Trends, by Susan B. Epstein, Liana W. Rosen, R45091 (2018), 2.

13Robert D. Worley, Orchestrating the Instruments of Power: A Critical Examination of the U.S. National Security System (Lincoln: Potomac Books, an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press, 2015), 340.

14Larry Butler, “The Global War on Terror and Diplomatic Practice,” American Foreign Service Association, last modified September 2021, https://afsa.org/global-war-terror-and-diplomatic-practice.

15Gen. (Ret) James L Jones et al., All Elements of National Power: Moving Toward a New Interagency Balance for US Global Engagement, ISBN: 978-1-61977-063-8 (Washington, DC: Atlantic Council, 2014), 7.

16Larry Butler, “Creeping Foreign Policy Militarization or Creeping State Department Irrelevance?,” American Foreign Service Association, accessed May 23, 2022, https://afsa.org/creeping-foreign-policymilitarization-or-creeping-state-department-irrelevance.

17National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017, Pub. L. No. 114-328 § 2, 130 Stat. 2000 (2016), p. 2.

18Robert M. Gates, “Helping Others Defend Themselves,” Foreign Affairs, last modified May 19, 2010, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2010-05-01/helping-others-defend-themselves, 2-6.

19Larry Butler, “The Global War on Terror and Diplomatic Practice,” American Foreign Service Association, last modified September 2021, https://afsa.org/global-war-terror-and-diplomatic-practice.

20Interview with Ambassador Larry Butler, May 5, 2022.

21Gen. (Ret) James L Jones et al., All Elements of National Power: Moving Toward a New Interagency Balance for US Global Engagement, ISBN: 978-1-61977-063-8 (Washington, DC: Atlantic Council, 2014), 7.

22Interview with Ambassador Larry Butler, May 5, 2022.

23Gen. (Ret) James L Jones et al., All Elements of National Power: Moving Toward a New Interagency Balance for US Global Engagement, ISBN: 978-1-61977-063-8 (Washington, DC: Atlantic Council, 2014), 11.

24Interview with Ambassador Larry Butler, May 5, 2022.

The Many Dangers of

Moral Antirealism

by Anthony Lupo[1]

Though the useful is not always good, the good is always useful.

– John Henry Newman[2]

In 415 BCE, Athens commissioned a massive military expedition to extend its empire to Sicily.[3] In less than three years, Spartan and Sicilian forces annihilated the largest joint force Athens had ever assembled. Athens’s invasion reignited the Peloponnesian War on unfavorable conditions, and it rallied Sicilian powers that had shown little interest in Greek affairs. The disastrous campaign marked the beginning of the end of the Athenian empire, and its cause was internal to Athenian political life. As Thucydides argued, greed overcame prudence in the Athenian national character. Athens sought fortune over its own security interests.[4]

Thucydides’s argument is both moral and causal: a moral failure caused Athens to invade Sicily. If Thucydides is right, morality provides the key to understanding Athens’s decision making.

As simple as Thucydides’s observation is, the joint force lacks the framework to make sense of it. Joint doctrine reduces morality to culture; it compresses moral concepts into the operational variables, or Political, Military, Economic, Social, Information, Infrastructure (PMESII) schema. Through its emphasis on morality as an aspect of culture, joint doctrine endorses a version of cultural relativism that mystifies moral reasoning and undermines its causal power. Explaining moral beliefs on relativist assumptions and the PMESII framework is like explaining why cricket never caught on in the U.S. It fails to treat morality seriously, and it cannot explain how a culture arrives at moral beliefs that change over time.

The problem is not just academic. Morality is normative. It exerts tremendous influence on how actors make decisions. Operationally, joint doctrine blinds the Commander to moral influences— the features of the operational environment that improve or worsen moral reasoning. More importantly, joint doctrine’s tacit endorsement of cultural relativism undermines the moral basis of the profession of arms. When turned inward, it debases the Constitution of its moral significance. To overcome these problems, the joint force must accept moral realism as a framework for making sense of the operational environment.

Major Anthony Lupo is a military intelligence officer in the U.S. Army. He was commissioned through the United States Military Academy in 2010, earned an MLitt. in Philosophy from the University of St. Andrews in 2011, and recently completed his Master in Military Art and Science at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. He has served in intelligence positions from tactical to strategic levels, including a deployment to Afghanistan in 2012.

A Blind Spot in Joint Doctrine

In philosophy, the view that there are objective standards of morality is called ‘moral realism.’ Realists believe that moral standards are independent of “any given actual or hypothetical perspective.”[5] Since moral standards are objective, they are also universal. If murder is wrong in Paris, it is also wrong in Beijing. Further, morality is normative rather than descriptive. This means moral facts (i.e., true statements about morality or the moral quality of something) provide reasons for what should be done or avoided (normative). Moral facts are more than a report of what a person, group, or culture happens to find motivating (descriptive).[6] Finally, moral beliefs influence the real world because they shape how actors understand right and wrong.

The opposite view is called ‘antirealism.’[7] Antirealists hold that either there are no moral standards (skepticism) or that standards are true only in relation to the perspective of some group or individual (subjectivism). Subjectivist antirealism is descriptive. For instance, cultural relativism holds that ‘morality’ is nothing more than a set of cultural beliefs about what should be done or avoided. According to subjectivists, it does not make sense to talk about morality outside of a cultural context because all morality is cultural. In a further wrinkle, some antirealists hold that moral claims are merely statements reporting an attitude of approval or disapproval.[8] If John says “killing is wrong,” what John actually means is that he disapproves of killing, “John disapproves of killing!”.

One of the oldest expressions of moral realism is Plato’s allegory of the cave. To Plato, the basic, unreflective condition of life is like being raised as a captive in a dark cave. Cave-dwellers see shadowy images projected on the wall by a dim fire. Ignorant of the world outside of the cave, they take the shadows for reality. They even name them according to conventions they establish. Meanwhile, philosophers venture out of the cave into the clear light of day where they perceive reality. The debate between realism and antirealism concerns whether there is such a thing as ‘outside of the cave.’ For most of human history, philosophers have held that there is.[9]

Antirealists hold that either there are no moral standards...

The branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of morality is called ‘metaethics.’ Metaethics runs one level deeper than most of the ethical questions military professionals typically consider. For example, whether bombing civilian targets in war is morally acceptable is an ethical question; but whether moral standards (e.g., the protected status of non-combatants) are objective, over-and-above culture, is a metaethical question. Though related, these two types of questions are distinct. In short, ethics is about what one should do or avoid, whereas metaethics is about how morality fits into reality.

Metaethical considerations are critical to the joint force. The Joint Force Commander uses the military instrument of national power to influence the operational environment to achieve a military end state. The operational environment is the “composite of the conditions, circumstances, and influences” that are relevant to the Command’s mission;[10] it is everything about the world that matters to an operation. If reality contains moral influences (i.e., ‘moral facts with causal power’) that influence the world, as realism suggests is possible, then the Commander ought to be interested in them. To return to the Athenian example, a Joint Force Commander in the Aegean theater of operations in 415 BCE has every right to a Thucydidean explanation of why Athens invaded Sicily, even though it is primarily moral.

Joint doctrine makes no room for moral facts and influences. It is antirealist.

Joint doctrine makes no room for moral facts and influences. It is antirealist. Across the body of literature, joint doctrine characterizes morality as nothing more than a set of cultural beliefs that groups of people find motivating. For instance, Joint Intelligence Preparation of the Operational Environment describes “moralities,” note the plural, as only “perceptions.”[11] Information Operations conflate moral facts with other belief-dependent phenomena, such as “individual and cultural beliefs, norms, vulnerabilities, motivations, emotions, experiences, morals, education, mental health, identities, and ideologies.”[12] All of these, except mental health and education, are entirely subjective. In discussing legitimacy, Joint Planning pairs the “actual and perceived…morality, and rightness of actions from the perspectives of interested audiences.”[13] By connecting ‘actual’ morality to perspectives, Joint Planning implies that morality is subjective. As mentioned earlier, subjectivism is antirealist because it denies objective moral standards. If 2018’s Joint Concept for Operating in the Informational Environment is any indication, joint doctrine is unlikely to turn from antirealism anytime soon.

The problem is not obvious, but it is serious. By embracing antirealism, joint doctrine is limited to a descriptive characterization of morality as culture. Like an accountant, joint doctrine directs analysts to list what a group believes. An accountant can read a ledger, but an accountant cannot explain why a purchase was made. In a similar way, descriptive approaches struggle to explain why a group holds a moral belief. As discussed below, the causal chain is cut-off at the very moment it becomes useful. To joint doctrine, Athens’s decision to pursue an elective war against its own interests must remain a mystery. The only way to capture Thucydides’s argument in joint terms is to reframe the failure through a complicated account of PMESII variables.

So why be antirealist? Outside of academic philosophy[14], the main appeal of antirealism is an observation called the ‘problem of moral disagreement.’ As J.L. Mackie writes, “radical disagreement between moral judgments makes it difficult to treat those judgments as apprehensions of moral truth.”[15] In other words, moral disagreements between people of different backgrounds (or even within the same background and education level) indicate moral standards are not objective. Antirealism has an easier time explaining the wide range of moral judgments in global society.

Realists respond to this objection in several ways. First, realists highlight many areas of moral agreement across cultures.[16] For instance, nearly all cultures punish murder, theft, sexual violence, and so on. Secondly, realists offer a view of moral reasoning that explains how people come to different moral beliefs. Unlike simple claims (e.g., ‘there is a chair in my office’), morality is “austere.”[17] People come to understand moral facts indirectly, by perceiving aspects of goodness, like “sincerity, loyalty, honesty, and so on,” until they arrive at a rich picture of “The Good [as] an indirect object of moral judgment.”[18] This process is difficult and fraught with error. As Plato said, the journey out of the cave is like an “ascent which is rough and steep.”[19] It takes adjustment and is subject to all the passions, biases, temptations, and cognitive traps that compromise human thought.[20]

Antirealism has not carried the day in academic philosophy.[21] Generally, philosophers consider moral realism the position with “common sense and initial appearances on its side.”[22] For example, when John says “murder is wrong,” an average listener assumes John means to express a universal prohibition of murder. The cultural brackets implied by subjectivism are not assumed in normal language use. This means antirealism is, at first blush, an idiosyncratic explanation of moral language.

Moral Realism and the Constitution

Philosophy aside, there are overwhelming practical reasons why the joint force should endorse moral realism. Specifically, antirealism undermines conscience and the profession’s commitment to the Constitution.[23]

If antirealism is true, the joint force supports and defends a Constitution whose ultimate authority stems from the accident of its ratification. To be an American at war is to represent the interests of the American tribe against all comers. Patriotism, flag-waving, and military parades provide spectacle and enchantment for what is really a means of distinguishing the American tribe, and its subjective moral standards, from others. What makes this culture worth celebrating is the fact that it belongs to us. On antirealism, the moral landscape resembles the creature of Stephen Crane’s imagination:

In the desert

I saw a creature, naked, bestial,

Who, squatting upon the ground,

Held his heart in his hands,

And ate of it.

I said, “Is it good, friend?”

“It is bitter — bitter,” he answered;

“But I like it

“Because it is bitter,

“And because it is my heart.”[24]

To an antirealist, the Constitution only represents an American agreement about the shadows on the wall of the cave.[25] In Hobbesian terms, “the desires, and other passions of man are in themselves no sin… till they know a law that forbids them: which till laws be made they cannot know.”[26] This law is the Constitution. There is no morality outside of it, and there was no morality before it. Therefore, there is no moral reason why the Constitution is worth defending, except that it happened to have been ratified. It is a short walk from here to the legal positivism (i.e., descriptive antirealism) of Stephen Douglas, Dredd Scot v. Sandford, and Plessy v. Ferguson.[27] In these cases, the positive law— the moral perspective represented in a culture’s laws— provided antirealist justification for human rights abuses, since there was no moral standard against which these laws could be considered unjust.

...antirealism undermines conscience and the profession’s commitment to the Constitution.

The antirealist temptation was not available to the Founding Fathers because they had to justify republicanism over other possible regimes.[28] This justification found its source in the moral order. As Hamilton wrote, “good and wise men, in all ages… have supposed… an eternal and immutable law, which is, indispensably, obligatory upon all mankind, prior to any human institution whatsoever.”[29] This “immutable law” was expressed in the Declaration of Independence. As Lincoln argued, the “Declaration of Independence… has proved an ‘apple of gold’ to us… the Constitution [is] the ‘picture of silver,’ subsequently framed around it.”[30] In other words, the Constitution exists to realize the moral ends expressed in the Declaration. To Lincoln, “[the Constitution] is not the result of an accident… it has a philosophical cause,” that is, a moral cause outside of the positive law.[31] In Lincoln’s debates against Douglas, he shows the ends and justification of the Constitution are ultimately found outside of it, outside of the cave, in truths held to be ‘self-evident.’[32] Lincoln’s reflections, just prior to the greatest crisis the Union had ever faced, echo the position of the Founding Fathers and early American jurists.[33]

If realism is true, then the joint force supports and defends a Constitution that is, in principle, capable of realizing the moral standards it is based upon. At a minimum, these standards include those outlined in the Declaration of Independence. Patriotism is then a way of celebrating and reinforcing the authority of morality as it exists outside of and within American culture. The Constitution provides a mediating framework for sustaining the relationship between the profession of arms, American society, and the moral order. Realism makes it possible to draw a moral through line from the actions of a soldier on the battlefield to objective moral standards. This line passes through the Constitution.

The moral through line is tenuous in the right ways: it is sensitive to just war and professional military ethics. It sustains the will to persist in war when one is fighting for a just cause.

Since antirealism rejects this basis, it undermines the spirit of the profession of arms. When the tribe is threatened, the exigencies of self-defense satisfy conscience, but the American tribe has seldom been threatened in this way. In all other cases, antirealism provides a thin basis for doing violence or risking one’s life. Is it enough that the tribe wants something that one should risk one’s life to take it? This may be enough for a mercenary force, but it is poison to a professional army. Ironically, the thinness of this justification will be felt more acutely the nearer the profession is to achieving “moral expertise.”[34] There is an inverse relationship between moral expertise, which every Service seeks to instill in its members, and the viability of antirealism as means of sustaining conscience in war. A well-formed conscience asks the questions a poorly formed conscience does not think to ask. Antirealism cannot answer these questions without undermining the moral framework implied by the Constitution.

Realism permits no ironies. As Lincoln wrote, “no oppressed people will fight, and endure, as our fathers did, without the promise of something better, than a mere change of masters.”[35] In this spirit, a Union soldier remarked in 1863: “sick as I am of this war and bloodshed, as much oh how much I want to be at home with my dear wife and children… every day I have a more religious feeling, that this war is a crusade for the good of mankind.”[36] On realism, moral expertise can perform the function it is assigned. Conscience tracks morality: it provides reasons, in the psychology of the soldier, to the extent that they are justified. The moral through line is tenuous in the right ways: it is sensitive to just war and professional military ethics. It sustains the will to persist in war when one is fighting for a just cause.

Moral Influences in the Operational Environment

There is one further practical reason why the joint force should accept moral realism. As mentioned before, realism provides a richer view of the operational environment because it provides a richer view of the world. Specifically, it provides an explanation for why groups arrive at moral claims and how these claims change over time. To illustrate this, we must first provide some examples of moral influences.

As an ancient realist, Aristotle held that happiness consists in virtuous living. People are habituated to virtuous living through forms of moral formation, including good parenting, legal and political systems, military training, and so on.[37] Those habituated to virtue come to understand virtuous living as worth pursuing for itself, as what constitutes happiness, rather than pursuing for some other good, like public honors or wealth.[38] As Aristotle says, a virtuous person “is [already] in possession of first principles.”[39] For this reason, Aristotle maintained that anything that habituates virtue— whether laws, institutions, or youth basketball leagues— improves one’s moral capacity to be virtuous. Each of these is a moral cause because they influence our understanding of morality.

Moral influences are reflexive. They make a people more or less likely to accept or honor moral standards. By revealing or concealing what goodness is, moral influences support or decay one’s understanding of morality. Moral influences illuminate or obscure moral standards; they do not create them (as antirealists suppose). Since moral influences have a logical bent toward or away from objective moral standards, they are necessarily cross-cultural. To bind them to a cultural context, as antirealism does, is to give them no standard against which they can be improved or worsened. Social progress is difficult to understand on an antirealist basis.

Thucydides explained Athens’s decision to invade Sicily in moral terms, but there are more recent examples of the importance of moral influences. The Iraqi Ba’ath party, although intrinsically unjust, especially under Saddam Hussein, included many subordinate institutions that performed key moral functions at the local level.[40] De-Baathification removed all these moral influences, including the good ones. Others took their place.[41] In the modern security environment, Russian New Generation Warfare seeks “reflexive control,” or to “locate the weak link in the [adversary’s] system and exploit it through moral arguments, psychological tactics, or appeals to specific leaders’ character.”[42] The efficacy of the Russian approach has less to do with volume and more to do with how viciously it manipulates moral influences to dramatic effect.

Joint doctrine assumes these subtleties have a place within the PMESII variables, on an antirealist and social scientific framework. Every moral cause is ‘Political,’ ‘Social,’ or ‘Informational’ in a trivial sense as these categories are all-encompassing. However, the salient feature of a moral cause is its capacity for a moral effect. Unlike the categories of social science, moral influences have a natural directedness toward or away from moral standards. Absent a realist basis, PMESII analysis does not have this directedness. The PMESII approach in doctrine emphasizes a simple classification of things over an understanding of how they influence the moral landscape of a society.

The PMESII approach in doctrine emphasizes a simple classification of things over an understanding of how they influence the moral landscape of a society.

The PMESII approach is also severely limited by the rules of logic. Philosophers call drawing moral conclusions from only non-moral premises the naturalistic fallacy. Non-evaluative facts, such as ‘this apple is red,’ cannot entail evaluative conclusions of the kind ‘apples are good.’ Even a hundred non-moral facts about apples (e.g., they are round, have cores, contain vitamins, etc.) do not entail a single moral fact about them (e.g., they are good). To make a valid argument, one must explain what makes an apple good. There must be a moral premise somewhere in an argument to arrive at a valid moral conclusion. Similarly, in a causal story of moral beliefs, there must be a moral cause, whether good or bad, that makes a belief moral to an agent. Consider the following example.

The Joint Force wants to understand John, a key player in the operational environment. Using the antirealist PMESII model, joint analysts correctly determine that ‘John believes might makes right.’ To explain why John holds this belief— in keeping with descriptive antirealism— analysts appeal to the brute fact of John’s culture. ‘This is just the way John is,’ they say. As an antirealist, the analyst cannot explain why John believes ‘might makes right’ is a true moral claim, because no number of descriptive claims (e.g., ‘John believes x’) entail that John’s conclusion is a true moral claim. But this is exactly why John holds this claim, because he believes it is a true moral claim. At most, the analyst can say that John’s belief is consistent with his other beliefs. If pressed for more, the analyst is in a dilemma: he must either conclude that John’s belief is arbitrary (i.e., no explanation is possible) or that John is irrational (e.g., makes invalid arguments). Antirealism accepts these conclusions. The analyst cannot escape the naturalistic fallacy and make John’s conclusion rational, regardless of whether it is correct, because the analyst has rejected realism.

Whenever the joint force employs antirealism to understand the adversary, it necessarily renders them inscrutable.

Whenever the joint force employs antirealism to understand the adversary, it necessarily renders them inscrutable. The naturalistic fallacy cuts antirealism off from meaningful explanations. Other cultures are alien. John only makes sense to John’s family (provided their moral outlook is the same). Rather than respecting moral disagreement across cultures, antirealism undermines the sense in which these disagreements can have any meaning. Other groups cannot be rational actors except to themselves. Joint doctrine cannot explain why a person or group believes a given proposition is moral— why it “justif[ies] the ascription of reasons” in a particular case— except as a brute fact of culture.[43]

The antirealism of joint doctrine is probably intended to protect the joint force from cultural blunder. This intention is noble, but the execution misses the mark. There is no culture on earth that consciously places culture before morality. Even if many moral views are culturally determined, it never appears that way to the people that hold them.[44] Antirealism is pessimistic in a way that no culture is. The antirealism of joint doctrine is a way of projecting this pessimism on the world.

As the Athenian example shows, it is only greed, the difference between what Athens ought to have done and what it did do, that explains why Athens assumed imprudent risk. Culture is an elastic concept, but it is not elastic enough to explain the interplay of greed and security interests.

The Realist Way Forward

Joint doctrine’s system-centric approach to characterizing the operational environment has several advantages. By emphasizing the relationship between elements in a system, the Joint Intelligence Preparation of the Operational Environment (JIPOE) methodology provides a detailed understanding of the operational environment. With some minor modifications, joint doctrine can retain its ‘systems-centric’ approach and accommodate moral influences. The elements of the solution are already present in joint doctrine.

According to Joint Planning, “tendencies reflect the inclination to think or behave in a certain manner.”[45] Similarly, “potential is the inherent ability or capacity for the growth or development of a specific interaction or relationship.”[46] The reflexivity of moral influences can be understood as an interplay of moral tendencies and potentials within a system. A moral cause shapes the tendencies of moral reasoning within a society and increases or decreases the potential for morality to motivate actors. This interplay influences the moral landscape of a system.

Figure 1. Moral Polarity and PMESII Analysis

One way to incorporate moral influences onto a system-centric view of the operational environment is to add polarity to the nodes and links of the system (see Figure 1). If a node has a positive polarity, then the analyst assesses it is exerting a positive moral influence on the system. In some way, the node is reinforcing virtue, rule of law, justice, etc. In short, the node makes a society more receptive of true moral claims. If a node has a negative polarity, it is diminishing or distorting beliefs about morality. Of note, a node may positively relate to some nodes and negatively relate to others. Where this is the case, the analyst can add polarity to links in the system.

This approach is simple but powerful. For instance, if the problem is corruption in a country’s officer corps, the analyst should be able to describe the moral influences (or lack thereof) contributing to this condition. This enables the Joint Force Commander to visualize the operational environment and to generate options that correct the problem. Reasonable recommendations might be to enforce a policy against nepotism or to increase professionalism by founding new professional education institutions. The joint force is already pursuing options of this kind, seemingly against its own antirealist assumptions about morality.[47]

This recommendation is no silver bullet. Since every mission is unique, moral facts and causes may not always be relevant to the operational environment. If the problem is an enemy tank division in the desert, then moral influences are unlikely to be relevant, especially at first. However, as the current National Defense Strategy seeks to “strengthen alliances and attract new partnerships,” the joint force should expect the global appeal of “a free and open international order” to depend on moral influences.[48] The first step to achieving this goal is to assess the polarity of moral influences as they are. But it is only a first step.

Analysts will require education to understand and assess moral influences. They do not need to be philosophers or anthropologists, but they will need a basic grasp of ethical and political theory. Ethical theory establishes the moral standards that give choices and culture meaning; political theory explains how moral influences shape the operational environment. Together they provide a solid foundation for understanding the operational environment, much in the same way the Declaration of Independence, as both a political and moral work, explains the moral foundation of the profession of arms. The road ahead is difficult. For this approach to work, there is “need of habituation,” as Plato would say.[49] The joint force must be willing to present morality within a realist framework. Doctrine must take care to distinguish moral influences from cultural phenomena, even as ‘moral’ beliefs differ between cultures. To be clear, the joint force need not embrace realism explicitly. It is enough to sever its antirealist commitments and allow common sense to take over. This better aligns the joint force’s approach to the operational environment and preserves the deepest convictions of the profession of arms. It gives joint force commanders the tools to think through a complex and fragile world. IAJ

Notes

1This article is a summary of my “Moral Realism and the Operational Art” (master’s thesis, Command and General Staff College, 2021) and reflects fruitful discussion with Dr. Jackie Kem, CH (MAJ) Jonathan Bailey, Mr. William Knight, MAJ Clyde Daines, Cecili Chadwick, CPT Nickolas Lupo, Dr. John W. Bauer, Reverend Brian Welter, Kyle Staron, Samuel VanKopp, and, most specially, Lisa V. Lopez.

2John Henry Newman, “Discourse 7: Knowledge Viewed in Relation to a Professional Skill,” in The Idea of a University, Newman Reader, https://www.newmanreader.org/works/idea/discourse7.html (accessed March 18, 2021).

3Thucydides, The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War, ed. Robert B. Strassler, trans. Richard Crawley (New York; NY: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 6.20-4, 6.31.

4Ibid., 2.65.

5Russ Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism: A Defence (New York; NY: Oxford University Press, 2003), 15.

6Bernard Gert and Joshua Gert, “The Definition of Morality,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N Zalta, Fall 2020 ed. (Berkeley, CA: Stanford University, 2020).

7Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, “Introduction: The Many Moral Realisms,” in Essays on Moral Realism (Ithaca; NY: Cornell University Press, 1988), 1-23.

8Ibid., 1-23.

9Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 3rd ed. (London, UK: Bloomsbury, 2007).; Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought, 2006 Reprint ed. (New York, NY: Penguin, 1977).

10Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publication 5-0: Joint Planning (Washington; D.C.: Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2017), IV-10.

11Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publications 2-01.3: Joint Intelligence Preparation of the Operational Environment (Washington; D.C.: Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2009), D-8.

12Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publication 3-13: Information Operations, Including Change 1 ed. (Washington; D.C.: Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2014), I-3.

13Joint Planning, III-5.

14Anthony Lupo, “Moral Realism and the Operational Art” (master’s thesis, Command and General Staff College, 2021), https://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p4013coll2/id/3971/rec/21.

15J. L. Mackie, “The Subjectivity of Values,” in Essays on Moral Realism, ed. Geoffrey Sayre-McCord (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988), 109.

16David Brink, Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 197-210; Nicholas L. Sturgeon, “Moral Explanations,” in Essays on Moral Realism, ed. Geoffrey Sayre-McCord (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988), 229-230.

17Mark Platts, “Moral Reality,” in Essays on Moral Realism, ed. Geoffrey Sayre-McCord (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988), 282-300.

18Ibid., 284-5.

19Plato, “Republic,” in The Collected Dialogues of Plato, ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, trans. Paul Shorey, 1989), 515e.

20Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism: A Defence, 217.

21David Bourget and David J. Chalmers, “What do Philosophers Believe?” Philosophical Studies 170, no. 3 (2014), 465.

22Geoffrey Sayre-McChord, “Moral Realism,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2020), ed. Edward N Zalta: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2020/entries/moral-realism/.

23This argument borrows heavily from Hadley Arkes, Beyond the Constitution (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990) and Harry V. Jaffa, Crisis of the House Divided: An Interpretation of the Issues in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, 50th Anniversary Edition ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959), 308-329.

24Stephen Crane, “The Black Riders and Other Lines,” in Prose and Poetry (New York, NY: Literary Classics of the United States, 1984), 1299.

25Arkes, Beyond the Constitution.

26Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1998), 85.; Arkes, Beyond the Constitution, 62.

27Arkes, Beyond the Constitution; Jaffa, Crisis of the House Divided: An Interpretation of the Issues in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, 317.

28Arkes, Beyond the Constitution, 40-57.

29Alexander Hamilton, “The Farmer Refuted, 1775,” National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-01-02-0057 (accessed March 18, 2021); Arkes, Beyond the Constitution, 64.

30Abraham Lincoln, “Fragment on the Constitution and the Union, 1861,” in Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, University of Michigan Digital Library ed., Vol. 4 (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan), 168-9; Arkes, Beyond the Constitution, 40.

31Lincoln, “Fragment on the Constitution and the Union, 1861,” 168.

32Jaffa, Crisis of the House Divided: An Interpretation of the Issues in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, 308-329.

33Arkes, Beyond the Constitution, 40-57.

34Department of the Army, Army Doctrine Publication 6-22: Army Leadership and the Profession, Including Change 1 ed. (Washington; D.C.: Department of the Army, 2019), 1-4.

35Lincoln, “Fragment on the Constitution and the Union, 1861,” 168-9.

36Alfred Lacey Hough as quoted in James M. McPherson, What they Fought for, 1861-1865 (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1994), 43.

37Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Roger Crisp (Cambridge; UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 1179b-1180a.

38Ibid., 1097b-1098a.

39Ibid., 1095b.

40Jeanne F. Godfroy et al., The U.S. Army in the Iraq War: Surge and Withdrawal, ed. Joel D. Rayburn and Frank K. Sobchak, Vol. 2 (Carlisle Barracks, PA: United States Army War College Press, 2019), 615.

41Alissa J. Rubin, “Ahmad Chalabi and the Legacy of De-Baathification in Iraq,” The New York Times, November 03, 2015.

42Annie Kowalewski, “Disinformation and Reflexive Control: The New Cold War,” Georgetown Security Studies Review (February 1, 2017).

43Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism: A Defence, 112.

44David Wiggins, “Truth, Invention, and the Meaning of Life,” in Essays on Moral Realism, ed. Geoffrey Sayre-McCord (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988), 135-6.

45Joint Planning, IV-10.

46Ibid., IV-11.

47Marybeth Peterson Ulrich, Promoting Professionalism through Security Cooperation: A Look at the European and Latin American Regions (Arlington, VA: Association of the United States Army, 2003), 18.

48Department of Defense, Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy (Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, 2018), 8.

49Plato, “Republic,” 516b.

Adversaries in the Altiplano:

Strategic Competition in South America’s Lithium Triangle

by Daniel Liebetreu

After four consecutive decades of explosive economic growth, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is wielding its newfound economic and political power in lands both near and far. The release of China’s “Go Out” strategy for outward foreign direct investment (FDI) in 1999 and its entrance into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, led to huge demand in China for commodities and a subsequent global commodities boom from 2003 to 2013. The price of some mineral and petroleum commodities tripled, and the so-called “China Boom” drove development and poverty reduction in commodity exporting countries across the global south.[1] As a result, China has risen as a new economic hegemon in parts of Africa and southeast and central Asia while greatly expanding its economic influence around the world.

In South America, many countries began to hedge their bets, limit their reliance on the United States economy, and more closely align with the Chinese economy during its commodities boom. The PRC became the number one trade partner of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, and several other smaller countries. Chinese FDI in South America exploded, particularly in extractive industries and agriculture, while Western investment tapered off following the global financial crisis of 2008-2009. The years of the so-called “China Boom” were so fruitful that millions of people escaped poverty and many economies in the region continued growing despite the disruption from the financial crisis. China was touted across the region as a new market for South American goods and a much-needed additional source of finance and investment. A natural partnership was forming.

Now as the world settles into its new normal following the COVID-19 pandemic and the US shifts its focus to resolving internal problems and national security issues in eastern Europe, the natural partnership between China and South America may provide the Chinese with a huge advantage as the strategic competition of the 21st century runs its course. During the two-decade explosion of investment and trade since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, Chinese companies have inserted themselves into the supply chains of many key minerals, most critical among them being lithium. As the U.S. economy transitions to renewable energy, it finds itself at a significant disadvantage in sourcing this key mineral, especially since the most economically viable lithium resources in the world are in South America’s altiplano, or high plains. This region in Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile—known as the Lithium Triangle (see Figure 1)—is where more than two-thirds of global lithium resources are located.

Major Daniel Liebetreu, U.S. Army, is currently serving as the operations officer in 1-10 Attack Battalion, 10th Combat Aviation Brigade, Fort Drum, New York. Previously, he studied as an Art of War Scholar at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College where he received a Master in Military Arts and Science and as an Olmsted Scholar in Valparaiso, Chile where he received a Master’s in International Relations.

Figure 1. South America’s Lithium Triangle

Source: Author’s own rendering with the assistance of snazzymaps.com and data from Lee Ann Munk, Scott A. Hynek, Dwight C. Bradley, David Boutt, Keith Labay, and Hillary Jochens. 2016. “Lithium Brines: A Global Perspective.” Reviews in Economic Geology, No. 18: 342–343.

To gain and maintain a competitive advantage, the United States requires a comprehensive, interagency strategy for the Western Hemisphere that benefits its partners in the Lithium Triangle while addressing the nation’s need for natural resources during the green energy revolution. Failure to act may provide the PRC with the opportunity to dominate the lithium-ion battery market for decades to come.

Why Lithium?

This article explores the opportunities and risks facing the United States given the PRC’s involvement in South America’s lithium supply chains. Since the first rechargeable hand-held video camera employed a lithium-ion battery in 1991, lithium-ion technology has been the gold standard for small, lightweight, and high-powered batteries. The commercialization of lithium-ion technology was one of the catalysts for the mobile phone revolution. These batteries provide the electricity required to power nearly all the wireless electronics that enable our day-to-day activities, including smart phones, tablets, laptop computers, smart watches, and more. Moreover, these batteries are so critical to the nation’s economic and military interests that the White House recently stated that “establishing and protecting a high-capacity [lithium-ion] battery manufacturing capability in the United States […] is critical to U.S. national security and is essential to developing resilient defense supply chains that are not under threat from potential adversaries.”[2] At the present time, the U.S. is at least a decade away from developing the mining capability to satisfy lithium demand through domestic extraction. As a result, the Lithium Triangle is a critical region to help the U.S. bridge the gap.

Lithium is important because it is the lightest of all the alkali metals. This means that it is the lightest element—number three on the periodic table—in a family of highly reactive metals containing a single valence electron. This single electron in the metal’s outer shell makes it so reactive that lithium does not occur in nature in its pure form, only as an element in a compound. In addition, this means it is an excellent conductor of heat and electricity and therefore the ideal metal for use in lightweight batteries.[3]

From a purely economic standpoint, the primary industry employing lithium-ion batteries is the auto industry through the employment of electric vehicles (EVs). The auto industry has been dominated by the internal combustion engine for more than a century, but now falling battery costs have industry experts predicting EVs to price similarly to their gas-burning competitors within five years.[4] This has caused the market share of EV maker Tesla to eclipse more than $975 billion—more than ten times the value of competitors Ford and General Motors. In China, where government policy is pressuring out new gas-powered autos, EV sales accounted for more than twenty percent of new vehicle sales in August 2021.[5] Nearly every major auto maker has announced plans to make their fleets all-electric in the coming decades, and the lithium-ion battery is the key to the transition.

However, lithium’s future is more broad than just electric vehicles. There is huge potential demand coming from battery makers geared toward bulk electricity storage. As more renewables join electrical grids around the world, the necessity for large, cheap batteries to store wind and solar energy will further drive demand. For example, Tesla has been installing batteries and solar panels in new homes in Australia and the US for several years.[6] On a larger scale, utilities companies are looking at investing in large battery packs to store electricity during periods of low demand and provide electricity as surge capacity during periods of increased demand. Some energy experts predict that a critical “tipping point” in the green energy revolution is the point where power companies build battery farms in lieu of a gas or coal plant to deal with high-demand times.

The Lithium Triangle

Due to its share of global reserves and resources, South America’s lithium is strategically significant. Argentina and Chile contain about half of the world’s current lithium reserves—that is, half of the total lithium that can be economically extracted today. Another quarter of global reserves reside in Australia, with about seven percent in China, and three and a half percent in the US. Meanwhile, global resources are even more highly concentrated in the Lithium Triangle with fifty-eight percent of total resources contained in the salty brines under the salt flats’ crusty surfaces.[7] More significantly, these resources contained in underground brines are the cheapest to extract and process into lithium carbonate, especially given the extremely dry climate in the altiplano desert.[8] Table 1 (page 44) shows the global array of lithium resources and reserves listed by country.[9]

There are currently two primary ways to exploit lithium reserves and each extraction operations’ method is determined by the way the mineral is geologically arrayed. The more economical extraction via salt brine is used in South America’s altiplano, as well as in locations in central China and portions of the Nevada desert. The process involves drilling approximately ten meters into the crust of these desert lakes to reach a mineral rich brine, then pumping the salty mixture to the surface into a series of evaporation pools. Once much of the water from the brine evaporates and the mixture is highly concentrated—a process that usually takes twelve to eighteen months—the salt’s prize, lithium carbonate (LiCO_3), can be removed and shipped to facilities for processing.[10]

The second extraction method comes from spodumene rock, which is common in Australia, China, and North Carolina, and involves pit mines where the rock is pulverized and then shipped to east Asia for processing.[11] These spodumene rock formations contain lithium hydroxide (LiOH), a more highly sought after compound for lithium-ion battery manufacturing because it is chemically easier to convert to cathode materials such as lithium cobalt oxide (LiCoO_2), lithium manganese oxide (LiMn_2O_4), lithium nickel oxide (LiNiO_2), and lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO_4).[12] The characteristics and ideal uses for each type of battery are described in Table 2 (page 45).

Table 1. Lithium Resources and Reserves by Country

Source: Author’s own rendering. Quantities denoted in tons of LCE and gathered from the U.S. Geological Survey. 2022. Mineral Commodities Summary 2022. Reston: U.S. Geological Survey.

Converting lithium carbonate from a salt brine into lithium hydroxide requires an additional chemical process utilizing either soda ash/sodium carbonate (Na_2CO_3) or slaked lime/calcium hydroxide (Ca(OH)2). This adds an additional cost to processing and, if done on sight at a salt brine operation, can add significant infrastructure requirements due to the road or rail network required to bring in the soda ash or slaked lime.

An additional factor in salt brine lithium extraction is the concentration of lithium in the brines. Since lithium is extremely common—in fact it is even present in ocean water at very low concentrations—the concentration of lithium determines whether extraction is economically viable. In general, brines with a lithium concentration over 100 parts per million (ppm or mg/L) are considered potentially viable.[13] The highest known concentrations of lithium in salt brines occur in the lithium triangle’s altiplano region, in some locations reaching more than 1,500 ppm. Table 3 (page 46) shows the concentration of lithium in known salt brines across the lithium triangle.

Argentina

At an altitude of thirteen thousand feet in northwest Argentina’s altiplano (or high plains) sits one of the country’s most spectacular landscapes. Thousands of years of erosion has created beautiful white expanses hiding the second largest collection of lithium resources in the world. Based solely on the numbers, Argentina’s lithium industry has a tremendous amount of potential—the country’s 19.3 million tons of known lithium resources are second in the world behind only Bolivia.[14] While the country has just two fully functioning extraction projects, the output of these two combines to make up the fourth largest production by any country in the world (behind Australia, Chile, and China respectively.) Moreover, those two projects alone sit on giant salares (salt flats) that make up the world’s third largest lithium reserve. In addition, Argentina has more than sixty other projects in either the exploration, construction, or pilot phase looking to turn the altiplano’s vast resources into economically viable reserves.[15]

Table 2. Characteristics of Lithium-Ion Cathodes

Source: Created by author from various sources, primarily Martin Obaya and Mauricio Céspedes. 2021. Análisis de las redes globales de producción de baterías de ion de litio: implicaciones para los países del triángulo del litio. Documentos de Proyectos (LC/TS.2021/58), Santiago de Chile: Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL): 59.

For mining firms, Argentina’s lithium is compelling for more than just its quantity. The quality is excellent as well. All of Argentina’s known lithium resources contain between 400 and 650 parts per million (ppm or mg/L) of lithium in the brine, and anything over 100 ppm is considered over the threshold to be economically viable.[16] For comparison, this is about three times more concentrated than the salt flat chemistries in the United States. But these remarkable salares sit in one of the driest and most remote places on earth, and the lack of water presents both advantages and unique challenges for the lithium extraction process. Naturally, the dry climate is good for the evaporation process used across the lithium triangle, however the brine extraction process requires huge amounts of water to pump the brines out of the ground and into the evaporation pools. Unfortunately, based on distances and the lack of infrastructure, water cannot be brought in from the outside without a massive investment in roads and/or pipelines. Moreover, provincial governments and mining companies have struggled to reach agreements with the indigenous tribes that have occupied this land for millennia and rely on the scarce water for drinking and farming. To overcome these challenges, Argentina’s lithium industry requires investment and technology. Where they obtain this investment and know-how might help determine who controls lithium supply chains for the next several decades.

Table 3. Salt Brine Compositions in the Lithium Triangle

Source: Author’s own rendering. Data from Alex Grant. 2021. “Is There Enough Lithium to Make All the Batteries?” Geothermal Lithium Extraction Prize DLE Webinar, August 12. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbV8S5t1JYg; and Lee Ann Munk, Scott A. Hynek, Dwight C. Bradley, David Boutt, Keith Labay, and Hillary Jochens. 2016. “Lithium Brines: A Global Perspective.” Reviews in Economic Geology, no. 18: 342–343.

The current groundwork for Argentina’s lithium policies were laid in the 1990s, a period of rapid economic and ideological change centered around deregulation, privatization, and decentralization. There are two legacy results of this: mining in Argentina is a relatively new industry (as opposed to the industries in Bolivia and Chile which are written into those countries’ constitutions) and therefore does not have an outdated, cumbersome regulatory framework; and the regulatory frameworks that do exist are held at the provincial level.[17] This decentralized approach has led to two distinctly different provincial development models. In the provinces of Catamarca and Salta, foreign and private domestic companies are awarded mineral rights based on proposals to explore, invest, and extract resources. These provincial governments are focused on augmenting the investing firm’s output as a means of increasing tax revenue. A 2019 Interamerican Development Bank study terms this the “extractivist” model focused on maximizing the quantity extracted by promoting investment, innovation, and research and then utilizing taxes to support other government initiatives.[18] In contrast, in the province of Jujuy, the provincial government has established a provincial-level state owned enterprise focused on industrializing the entire process from exploration and extraction to processing and manufacturing. This “industrialization” model collects a percentage of all lithium carbonate produced in the region and uses it to attract companies that conduct value-added production.[19]

Argentina presents an excellent investment opportunity for American lithium mining and lithium-ion battery firms...

Argentina presents an excellent investment opportunity for American lithium mining and lithium-ion battery firms and will be a critical actor in the green energy revolution because it offers the best opportunity for investment due to the openness in Catamarca and Salta provinces. In addition, the different provincial models provide advantages and disadvantages that could appeal to U.S. companies and create opportunities for investment and innovation. While the fiscal uncertainty involved in investment in Argentina is unlikely to subside, the potential upside is too great to ignore.

In terms of strategic competition, the Chinese have a leg up on American firms because of the size of recent investments and the geopolitical trends given Argentina’s recent admission to the BRI. However, there are still plenty of opportunities to get involved that could be beneficial to long-term U.S. strategic interests. The sheer quantity and diversity of lithium extraction projects warrants investigation by U.S. policy makers into programs that provide American companies a comparative advantage. One policy possibility is an EXIM Bank program that provides loan guarantees to American companies investing in lithium extraction in Argentina. While American capital has been reluctant to invest in Argentina in recent decades, the next two cases will demonstrate why Argentina may be the best investment option in South America’s lithium triangle.

Bolivia

The second country in the Lithium Triangle is the Plurinational State of Bolivia, a landlocked country with the largest known lithium resources on the planet. For more than a decade, lithium has been a central theme in Bolivian politics as the country grapples with how to best exploit its mineral resources and fend off deep-seeded anxiety stemming from the country’s history of exploitation by foreign powers dating back to the Spanish Empire’s silver mines in the 16th century.[20] This complicated history has shaped the discussion around mineral extraction and led to a highly centralized, state-driven extraction model based on a popular and widely successful model it uses for natural gas. However, gas was put under state control after the investment of billions of dollars of foreign, private equity in the 1990s.[21] Unlike with lithium, the Bolivian government did not have to build a capable oil and gas sector from the ground up, only continue to profitably manage an already established industry that accounted for more than half the country’s annual exports.

For more than a decade, lithium has been a central theme in Bolivian politics as the country grapples with how to best exploit its mineral resources...

Unfortunately, the state-controlled lithium industry is inefficient and way behind its competitors in Argentina and Chile. In addition, the chemical composition of Bolivia’s lithium resources—their brines contain very high amounts of magnesium—requires special technologies known as Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) that does not yet exist at scale. To tackle the technology problem, the Bolivian government has turned to joint ventures with foreign firms, although previous joint ventures have rarely made it past the pilot phase. For example, the largest and most recent joint venture—a deal between the state-owned lithium enterprise Yacimientos de Litio Boliviano (YLB) and the German green-technology manufacturer ACI Systems—was canceled by Evo Morales just days before he escaped into political exile in November 2019. Fortunately, after the political turmoil that ended the Morales administration and a difficult bout with the coronavirus under an interim government in 2020, Bolivia is beginning to settle into the post-Morales era. Morales’ former Minister of Economy Luis Arce won a fair election in late-2020 and has restored hope to the Bolivian lithium industry. In early 2021, YLB held another round of competitions in search for a DLE technology that makes the extraction of lithium from Bolivian salt brines economically viable. Thus, the country with the largest lithium resources in the world hopes to drastically expand extraction and processing during this decade but cannot make the leap on its own.

Currently there are six companies—four Chinese billion-dollar firms, an American startup called Livent, and the Russian state uranium company—in the pilot stage of the DLE extraction competition vying to prove that their DLE technology can make Bolivia’s lithium competitive. Incredibly, despite the political turmoil and unfriendly business environment, the chemical composition of the Bolivian salt brines is likely the single biggest factor that explains why the nation with the largest lithium resources in the world has long struggled to capitalize on this mineral wealth. If the Bolivians can ally with a team capable of overcoming this technical hurdle, the trajectory of global lithium markets could be determined by operations in Bolivia’s altiplano for decades to come.

Looking at the strategic competition between the United States and PRC, Bolivia may be the perfect case where the advantages of engagement with both the Americans and Chinese could coincide. If the Bolivians have the flexibility built into their competition to select multiple winners, they could capitalize on the strengths of both an innovative American company and a massive Chinese firm. An American startup could provide the DLE technology that finally makes the Bolivian brines economically viable while a billion-dollar Chinese state-owned enterprise could help bring the operation to scale. Much will still hinge on the capabilities of YLB and the institutions within the Bolivian government, but after more than a decade of slow progress, the Bolivians could be on the precipice of a breakthrough.

Chile

In Chile, the most economically open and prosperous nation in Latin America is facing a potential economic policy course reversal. Following the massive protest movement of late 2019 known as the Estallido social (literally translated as “social outburst”), the Chilean people voted to rewrite their neoliberal constitution and forge a new social contract that is more inclusive and environmentally friendly. Then in December of 2021 they elected a thirty-six-year-old Socialist named Gabriel Boric who has suggested that Chile should nationalize the nation’s lithium industry utilizing a model similar to the current Chilean state copper company. Boric hopes to use the additional funds generated by a nationalized lithium industry to pay for broad reforms to the pension, healthcare, and public education systems. However, on September 4th, 2022, the Chileans rejected the newly proposed constitution since it was deemed to swing too far to the left. Therefore, Chile remains politically deadlocked, and the uncertainty this has created will likely impact foreign investment in the lithium sector for years to come.

As it stands today, Chile’s long history of lithium extraction has fostered a well-regulated industry that does not hold the same potential as the other two countries in the lithium triangle. However, U.S. policy makers should not take their eye off of Chile’s lithium industry due to the involvement of the world’s largest lithium producer: the private American mining company Albemarle. Since Albemarle is one of just two lithium producers in Chile, it is vital to U.S. interests that the Chileans maintain a market-based model. Similarly, the PRC views the Chileans as a critical partner in its globalized development model. The Chinese are the Chileans largest trade partner and biggest importer of Chilean copper and fresh produce. In addition, Chinese lithium giant Tianqi Lithium Corporation made a massive $4.1 billion investment in 2018 to purchase a non-majority stake in Sociedad Química y Minera (SQM), the Chilean owned mining firm that constitutes the other half of Chilean lithium production.[22]

...Chile’s long history of lithium extraction has fostered a well-regulated industry...

Despite the ongoing political turmoil, Chile remains an example of balance between government oversight and the free market to manage economic interests and the interests of local populations and environmental groups. The central government has managed this delicate balance through strong institutions—the National Lithium Council and CCHEN—and the quotas they set based on environmental factors. Both well-established operations have increased their annual lithium output as demand has increased and technology has made further exploitation ecologically sustainable. In this regard, Chile should serve as an industry standard.

In terms of strategic competition, Chile is an example of where the US and China can coexist while benefiting both the host nation and the lithium industry more broadly. Both Albemarle and Tianqi Lithium have made huge investments in Chilean lithium to meet growing global demand. These types of investments create jobs, contribute taxes to the local and national governments, and increase the royalties Chile will make from its lithium reserves. As Chile debates the merits of nationalization, it is important to consider that both superpowers (who happen to account for more than half of Chilean trade) have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

Finally, as the most established lithium provider in the region, Chile remains a critical player to the near-term supply of lithium, especially given the involvement of US-based Albemarle. Given the current discussions surrounding the potential nationalization of Chilean lithium, the U.S. State Department must continue to foster relationships in Santiago to ensure fair treatment of U.S. firms and help maintain Chile’s reputation as a friendly destination for American foreign direct investment.

...the United States has fallen behind the PRC in securing a reliable supply of lithium...

Recommendations

Since the United States has fallen behind the PRC in securing a reliable supply of lithium for its EVs, smartphones, and defense technologies that require light, high-energy density batteries, the author has identified three ways in which the United States can engage the region while better supporting US interests. First, the government must publish a national strategy for the Western Hemisphere that promotes economic development, enhances American companies’ opportunities to sustainably invest in the region’s mineral wealth, and counters the growing influence of authoritarian extra-hemispheric actors. Second, the government must create an industrial policy that provides upstream investment in lithium related technologies like DLE to help U.S. companies gain and maintain a technological advantage over Chinese and other foreign firms. Finally, the U.S. must enact a “whole-of-government” approach to provide financing and incentives for American companies investing abroad in strategic supply chains. By adopting these policies, the U.S. can ensure access to South America’s lithium reserves while also regaining credibility with South American governments and populations that have begun turning to the PRC for financing, investment, and overall leadership in the international system.

Recommendation One: Publish a National Strategy for the Western Hemisphere

Unlike the PRC, the U.S. has not published a national strategy for Latin America outlining clear priorities and lines of effort for engagement with the region. Given China’s growing influence, this is problematic. China continues to emphasize “trade, investment, and financial cooperation” as described in their 1+3+6 plan released in 2014, and their latest strategy for the region has added a focus on the extraction of “geological and energy mining resources”.[23] While the Western Hemisphere may not be the primary theater for strategic competition, the US has the capacity to engage with allies, partners, and other nations in multiple theaters simultaneously. To maintain stability in the Americas and secure a reliable supply of lithium, the US must develop and enact a comprehensive strategy.

The Western Hemisphere Security Strategy Act (WHSSA) proposed by Senate Foreign Relations Committee members Bob Menendez and Marco Rubio in February of 2022 could serve as the catalyst for this strategy development. The legislation would require the development of “a multi-year strategy […] for purposes of enhancing diplomatic engagement and security assistance and cooperation, promoting regional security and stability, and advancing United States strategic interests in the Western Hemisphere’’.[24] This is an encouraging first step, but the proposed legislation falls short by not incorporating regional development initiatives or a plan to counter the huge PRC investments in energy, infrastructure, and natural resource exploitation.

To be most effective, the WHSSA should require a strategy that incorporates three national priorities: security and stability in the Western Hemisphere in the face of extra hemispheric actors, democracy promotion and institutional reform, and access to vital minerals required for the green energy transformation. The proposed legislation includes the first two elements, but the third is equally critical and interrelated. Since a key element of the administration’s energy transition strategy is ensuring cheap, reliable access to lithium for America’s innovative green technology companies, it should also be incorporated into the strategy that covers the region with the largest lithium resources in the world. In addition, the new strategy must incorporate all elements of national power and leverage the capabilities of organizations like the United States International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), which will be discussed in further detail in recommendation three. In summary, without a strategy that clearly aligns all available ways and means to deliberate lines of effort, the U.S. will struggle to accomplish its strategic objectives in the Western Hemisphere and lead the global green energy revolution.

Recommendation Two: Develop Industrial Policy to Maintain the Advantage

Over the course of the next decade, technology and access to resources will determine which lithium and battery companies succeed and which ones fail. The U.S. government must do everything in its power to help American companies achieve success. To give its companies a comparative advantage in the strategic competition with the PRC, the U.S. government must develop an industrial policy that ensures the U.S. leads the green energy revolution. Through limited, yet effective policies, the government can guide the free market through the green energy transition by procuring charging stations and other EV infrastructure, subsidizing EV purchases and bulk battery storage, and slowly removing the current subsidies that support the oil and gas industry. While America’s economic dynamism stems from its adherence to limited government, the ensuing climate crisis warrants a fundamental shift in economic policy directed at limiting fossil fuel consumption and expanding green energy’s role in the electrical grid and transportation sector. While the climate provisions in the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act are a step in the right direction, more deliberate legislation is still necessary.

Over the course of the next decade, technology and access to resources will determine which lithium and battery companies succeed...

For comparison, the PRC is effectively employing an industrial policy known as “Made in China 2025” focused on upgrading Chinese industry through targeted investment, trade policy, and innovation enhancing education and training programs. The policy describes Xi Jinping’s vision of achieving global dominance in ten critical industries, to include information technology and artificial intelligence, robotics, and green technology.[25] Policy makers in Washington finally understand the threat China poses to U.S. economic interests. It is time to create an industrial policy to counter that threat.

Effective U.S. industrial policy should focus on specific industries that support the green energy transformation and relate to industries where U.S. companies are competing with Chinese firms. One example related to this article’s scope is Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE). The government should provide research grants to companies and research institutions involved in upstream DLE research. While traditional lithium extraction through evaporative ponds is slow and only recovers 45-55% of the lithium in the brines, ongoing research in DLE has demonstrated the potential to extract 80-90% of dissolved lithium while utilizing much less time and water. Since every lithium brine deposit has a unique chemistry, the government should focus on upstream investment in research that could impact a variety of lithium operations (for example, research involving membrane materials) and then leave private businesses to tailor their processes to the individual chemistries of their respective brines. Government funded research could have given American companies a huge advantage in the DLE competition in Bolivia, but Livent and EnergyX, who was disqualified from the competition in June of 2022, were left to fend for themselves in a competition with several billion-dollar Chinese state-owned firms. Well formulated and executed industrial policy could provide U.S. lithium producers greater access to resources at home and abroad; much needed financing for research and development in green technologies like DLE; and an advantage over foreign battery and EV manufacturers.

For the countries in the lithium triangle, America’s greatest strength is its ability to combine innovative technologies with private equity.

Recommendation Three: Provide Financing and Loan Guarantees to U.S. Companies

For the countries in the lithium triangle, America’s greatest strength is its ability to combine innovative technologies with private equity. Unfortunately, when there is too much risk due to geopolitical or economic instability, the equity holders are unwilling to invest. However, if the U.S. government can mitigate some of the risk, the private financing will diligently seek promising investment opportunities and rapidly flow to wherever there is potential. While the U.S. government does not want to “pick winners” per se, it can play a role by minimizing investment risk due to the strategic nature of the lithium extraction projects in these three countries.

One policy option that could appeal to American private equity is a loan guarantee program for companies investing in the Lithium Triangle. This would be a leap from current Export-Import Bank (EXIM Bank) policies toward Argentina and Bolivia, two countries whose currency issues have scared away public investment support. However, the strategic significance of lithium and the rapidly rising price per ton of lithium carbonate is changing the risk tolerance for both public and private actors. Stephen Promnitz, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of lithium firm Lake Resources, has recommended that the U.S. government explore export credit agency support in which the US government partners with downstream participants like EV manufacturers and battery makers. These conglomerates then provide financing for mining and processing companies in exchange for preferred access to lithium exports. Export credit agencies like the EXIM Bank and the recently formed U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) offer what Promnitz describes as the “key financing factor” that could provide the US with a decisive advantage.[26]

Support and financing from the DFC could be a game-changer for American lithium companies and EV and battery manufacturers. The agency is a development financier that, according to the Congressional Research Service, was designed in part to respond to China’s BRI.[27] It was formed in December 2019 to combine several government funds and agencies including the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and the Development Credit Authority (formally part of the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID). The agency provides direct loans, loan guarantees, political risk insurance, equity investment, and feasibility studies. In addition, potential projects in South American lithium extraction align with the agency’s stated priorities of innovation, investment in the Western Hemisphere, and addressing climate change. Given Argentina’s currency problems and the uncertainty generated by Bolivia and Chile’s recent political transitions, when the U.S. government publishes its national strategy for the Western Hemisphere mentioned in recommendation number one, the DFC should be featured in a prominent role.

Conclusion

Given the role of lithium in modern battery technology, the world’s lightest metal will continue to power the ongoing green energy revolution for decades to come. In addition, lithium-ion batteries will continue to shape defense technologies related to communications, drones, robotics, mobile computing, and more. Due to these critical roles for lithium in economics and defense, it is concerning how far the United States has fallen behind China in ensuring reliable access to the metal. With demand projected to outpace supply by up to thirty percent by 2030, the Lithium Triangle has become a vital region for U.S. interests.

With the objective of securing its lithium supply chains and gaining a competitive advantage over the PRC in the economic, diplomatic, and military realms, the U.S. government must develop and implement a comprehensive strategy for increased engagement in the Western Hemisphere. This strategy must be tied into a broader industrial policy related to American competitiveness during the green energy revolution. These two objectives align in Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile, where access to their lithium reserves has become a critical component in the twenty-first century’s strategic competition.

Fortunately, the U.S. has several means to accompany these ends and ways. For example, by increasing American financing in the region through aid and loan guarantees the US can provide protection for American investors considering projects in these three South American markets. In addition, the U.S. government can increase funding for research and development in battery and DLE technologies to maintain America’s technological advantage. Through expanded diplomatic initiatives and more funding DFC, the US government can better support American companies competing abroad in strategic areas against Chinese firms. Furthermore, this diplomacy and regional engagement should strive to align U.S. strategic objectives with those of the countries in the Lithium Triangle, thus enhancing local development and strengthening America’s partnerships in South America. Since strategic competition affects all aspects of American foreign and economic policy, the most comprehensive and integrated strategies will have the greatest impact. IAJ

Notes

1Rhys Jenkins, How China is Reshaping the Global Economy: Development Impacts in Africa and Latin America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), 268.

2The White House, Building Resilient Supply Chains, Revitalizing American Manufacturing, and Fostering Broad-Based Growth: 100-Day Review (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2021), 92.

3Sophie Bauer, “Entiéndelo: Las oportunidades y desafíos de la industria del litio,” December 2, 2020, accessed October 21, 2021, https://dialogochino.net/es/actividades-extractivas-es/38662-las-oportunidadesy-desafios-de-la-industria-del-litio/.

4Russell Foldy and Ben Gold, “The Battery Is Ready to Power the World,” February 5, 2021, accessed 17 October 2021. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-battery-is-ready-to-power-the-world-11612551578?mod=article_inline.

5Russell Flannery, “EV Sales At BYD, XPeng Soar In Sept., Underscoring Strong China Demand,” October 3, 2021, accessed October 17, 2021, https://www.forbes.com/sites/russellflannery/2021/10/03/evsales-at-byd-xpeng-soar-in-sept-from-year-earlier-underscoring-strong-china-demand/?sh=5f12a823562a.

6The Economist, “An increasingly precious metal,” January 16, 2016, accessed October 17, 2021, https://www.economist.com/business/2016/01/14/an-increasingly-precious-metal.

7U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodities Summary 2022 (Reston, VA: Government Printing Office, 2022), 98-99.

8The White House, Building Resilient Supply Chains, Revitalizing American Manufacturing, and Fostering Broad-Based Growth, 102.

9There are various sources for the status of global lithium reserves and resources. One of the best is the annual report published by the USGS. However, for strategic reasons the USGS withholds much of the data pertaining to the reserves and resources in the United States. For an accurate assessment of where the US stands, the author relied on data published by the companies with the mineral rights (which tend to be optimistic) and the research of Alex Grant available at: https://www.jadecove.com/research/.

10The Economist, “An increasingly precious metal;” Sophie Bauer, “Entiéndelo: Las oportunidades y desafíos de la industria del litio.”

11The Economist, “A battle for supremacy in the lithium triangle,” June 17, 2017, accessed November 18, 2021, https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2017/06/15/a-battle-for-supremacy-in-the-lithiumtriangle.

12Martín Obaya and Mauricio Céspedes, Análisis de las redes globales de producción de baterías de ion de litio: implicaciones para los países del triángulo del litio, (Santiago de Chile: Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), 2021), 59.

13Lee Ann Munk, Scott A. Hynek, Dwight C. Bradley, David Boutt, Keith Labay, and Hillary Jochens, “Lithium Brines: A Global Perspective,” Reviews in Economic Geology, no. 18 (2016): 339.

14Data from Alex Grant. 2021. “Is There Enough Lithium to Make All the Batteries?” Geothermal Lithium Extraction Prize DLE Webinar, August 12. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbV8S5t1JYg; and Lee Ann Munk, Scott A. Hynek, Dwight C. Bradley, David Boutt, Keith Labay, and Hillary Jochens. 2016. “Lithium Brines: A Global Perspective.” Reviews in Economic Geology, no. 18: 342–343.

15Agustin Geist, “In Argentina’s north, a ‘white gold’ rush for EV metal lithium gathers pace,” September 14, 2021, accessed February 20, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/argentinasnorth-white-gold-rush-ev-metal-lithium-gathers-pace-2021-09-14.

16Lee Ann Munk et al., “Lithium Brines: A Global Perspective,” 339.

17Mauricio León, Cristina Muñoz, and Jeannette Sánchez, La gobernanza del litio y el cobre en los países andinos, (Santiago de Chile: CEPAL, 2020), 39-40.

18Ibid., 61.

19Ibid.

20Mark Burkholder, Monica Rankin, and Lyman Johnson, Exploitation, Inequality, and Resistance: A History of Latin America since Columbus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 102-104.

21Carin Zissis, “Bolivia’s Nationalization of Oil and Gas,” May 12, 2006, accessed January 20, 2022, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/bolivias-nationalization-oil-and-gas.

22MINING.com Editor. 2021. “Tianqi’s top shareholder to get up to $2.5bn injection.” MINING.com. January 29. https://www.mining.com/tianqis-top-shareholder-to-get-up-to-2-5bn-injection/.

23Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRC, “China - CELAC Joint Action Plan for Cooperation in Key Areas (2022-2024),” December 13, 2021, http://gy.china-embassy.org/eng/xwfw/202112/t20211213_10469237.htm; “Xi Jinping Attends China-Latin America and the Caribbean Summit and Delivers Keynote Speech,” July 18, 2014, https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/topics_665678/xjpzxcxjzgjldrdlchwdbxagtwnrlgbjxgsfwbcxzlldrhw/t1176650.shtml.

24U.S. Senate, Western Hemisphere Security Strategy Act of 2022, 117th Cong., 2d sess. (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Record MCC22038 9FR, 2022).

25Anshu Siripurapu, “Is Industrial Policy Making a Comeback?” March 16, 2021, accessed April 12, 2022, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/industrial-policy-making-comeback?gclid=Cj0KCQjwxtSSBhDYARIsAEn0thQQywXDDIxePsBEEL-EEuEMfa9T29hfbbhaJK6a798Pi6uEK3x0th0aAplzEALw_wcB#chapter-title-0-7.

26Stephen, Promnitz, “Latin America’s Lithium and the Future of Renewable Energy in the United States,” video of interview by Patricia Vásquez, January 10, 2022, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/latin-americas-lithium-and-future-renewable-energy-united-states.

27Congressional Research Service, U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC). CRS Report IF11436, by Shayerah I. Akhtar and Nick M. Brown, (Washington, D.C.: Office of Congressional Information and Publishing, 2022), https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11436.

Artificial Intelligence:

Winning the Talent Management Race

by Yvette Kushmerick

Tech advances like AI are changing the face and the pace of warfare. AI and related technologies will give us both an information and an operational edge… and that means a strategic advantage.

– Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, Remarks at the Global Emerging Technology Summit of The National Security Commission on AI.

AI competition will not be won by the side with the best technology; it will be won by the side with the best, most diverse, and tech-savvy talent.

– National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence. Final Report: National Security Commission on AI. March 19, 2021.

Artificial Intelligence (AI), defined by the Department of Defense as the ability of machines to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, has the potential to fundamentally “change the nature of war,” realizing the next military revolution in the twenty-first century.[1] Recognizing the profound impact AI has as a military application has led to a technological race between the United States and the People’s Republic of China.[2] While AI debuted on center stage in 1997 when IBM’s system, Big Blue, defeated the world chess champion, Gary Kasparov, in a six-game match, AI did not get a standing ovation until Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo system defeated the internationally top-ranked Go player, Lee Sedol, in 2016.[3] There are 361 possible first moves per side in Go and 10^170 total possible board configurations, making it a googol (1 followed by a hundred zeros) times more complicated than Chess. When compared to the total number of atoms in the observable universe, between 10^78 to 10^82 atoms, the gravity of AI’s power becomes evident. Many argue this watershed moment marks the commencement of the AI race.[4]

Major Yvette Kushmerick, U.S. Air Force, currently serves as a USSOCOM Technology Liaison Officer in the National Capital Region. She holds a Master in Military Arts and Science from the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and a Master of Science in Cyber Technologies from the University of Maryland. Kushmerick combines her background in signals intelligence with her extensive experience directly supporting combat operations to develop creative, cutting-edge solutions to the nation’s toughest security challenges.

The competition for AI leadership and its outcome will have significant consequences on international politics.[5] Chuck Hagel, former Secretary of Defense, and Christian Brose, previous staff director of the Senate Armed Services Committee under Chairman John McCain, advocate for the U.S. to develop military applications of AI to regain a qualitative advantage over strategic competitors.[6] The U.S. military does not have a monopoly on AI-enabled big data analytics in the same way it did for precision-guided munitions, stealth technology, and Command, Control, Communications, Computer, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) in the 1980s.[7]

The race to harness AI for economic, industrial, social, and, most importantly, military use, has the potential to shift the balance of power between the U.S. and China, and fundamentally change the post-World War II international order.[8] The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 formed and instructed the National Security Commission on AI (“the Commission”) to examine the current AI operational environment and offer recommendations on how the U.S. can create a competitive advantage. According to the Commission, the U.S. has not grasped the profound influence AI will have on national security, nor is the U.S. prepared to compete in the AI era.[9]

The Commission’s Final Report, The Department of Defense AI Strategy, and China’s New Generation AI Development Plan all indicate the crux of both the U.S. and China’s national AI capability as being the cultivation of talent pools in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM).[10] The technological race between the United States and China for AI leadership will largely manifest itself in the competition for talents, because the holy grail of technological breakthroughs is rare talent.[11] The Commission regards talent as the most essential requirement for succeeding in the AI race with China because “it drives the creation and management of all other elements.”[12] AI competition will not be won by the side with the best technology; it will be won by the side with the best, most diverse, and tech-savvy talent.[13]

The competition for AI leadership and its outcome will have significant consequences on international politics.

The Race for STEM Talent

Since Chinese President Xi Jinping’s address to the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in October 2017, during which he rallied integration of the Internet of Things, big data, and AI initiatives to achieve great power status, the quantity of publications, patents, and personnel in AI-related fields increased steeply.[14] President Xi aims to advance China’s leadership in space technology, robotics, nanotechnology, molecular genetics, solar, quantum information sciences, autonomous systems, and advanced material manufacturing.[15] China’s advantage in AI stems from three critical assets: the quantity of computer science and engineering talent, vast structured data sets, and the national strategy of military-civil fusion.[16]

Under China’s 2017 AI Education Strategies, not only is AI education mandated in China’s primary school system but to achieve this goal, technology companies are required to partner with schools and universities to train students.[17] The curriculum encompasses python programming, AI, the Internet of Things, and big data processing.[18] The centralized control nature of AI development under the People’s Republic of China’s Next Generation AI Plan is in stark contrast to the United States’ approach to the AI race.[19] “Only 47 percent of United States public high schools teach computer science in 2020, which is an increase from 35 percent in 2018.”[20] At the undergraduate level, China implemented two primary mechanisms for AI training: AI institutes and standardized AI majors in 345 Chinese universities as of 2021.[21] In addition to the internal cultivation of STEM talent pools, China issued policies to attract international AI talents from universities and research institutions in developed countries.[22]

With a numerical advantage in STEM graduate degrees, China is well-equipped to develop a robust, medium-term AI talent pool.

With a numerical advantage in STEM graduate degrees, China is well-equipped to develop a robust, medium-term AI talent pool.[23] The Commission highlighted that in the fourteen years between 2000 and 2014, China increased its STEM graduate output by 360 percent, while the United States only increased output by 54% during the same period. [24] In 2020, there were over 430,000 computer science positions in the United States but only 71,000 new computer science graduates from United States universities.[25]

Challenges to recruiting and retaining AI-related talent in the United States Government are due to the inability of the government to compete with private-sector salaries, the cumbersome hiring process, the slow security clearance process, and what many STEM degree graduates perceive as not meaningful work.[26]

The formidable task of gaining and maintaining a technological advantage in the AI race is not unique from a historical perspective. There are three notable instances in which the United States entered a technological race from a position of disadvantage, the personnel in the technological race required high competence in STEM fields, and the United States ultimately succeeded over an adversary in the race. The race to break adversary cryptographic systems, and the race for the atomic bomb during WWII, and the space race of the 1950s and 1960s offer lessons to shape the national AI initiative of building an AI-ready workforce.

At the start of WWII, the United States fell behind competitors in cryptanalytics. However, the United States prevailed over the Axis Powers by identifying the gap, discovering, and developing the right talent, and creating the technology to support the talent, which ultimately led to deciphering German and Japanese codes.[27] Perhaps the most consequential of the examples was the race for the atomic bomb, renowned as the Manhattan Project. The success of the Manhattan Project had immediate and strategic implications. The Space Race with the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s in which both sides sought to achieve superior spaceflight capabilities called for a national reckoning for gifted and talented mathematics and science students. Common talent management themes from three historical technological races are:

1.The creation of an organization with clearly definable goals under centralized leadership,

2.An environment with a sense of urgency,

3.A diverse team of people representing more than one national origin, color, religion, socioeconomic stratum, and sexual orientation,[28]

4.A team with a shared sense of value in the work,

5.Recruitment direct from universities by renowned members in the scientific field to which members were being recruited, and

6.An environment where the decision-makers value members for expertise.

Cryptanalysis during WWII

During WWII, the United States systematically recruited tens of thousands of women to conduct the tedious and mentally daunting top-secret process of intercepting and deciphering German and Japanese cryptographic codes to discover the enemy’s order of battle, locations, disposition, and strategic direction.[29] Women, identified for prowess in mathematics, science, and foreign languages, and possessing “character, loyalty, and grit,” received a letter from the United States Government asking two questions: do you like crossword puzzles, and are you engaged to be married? [30]

In September 1941, Rear Admiral Leigh Noyes wrote a letter to Ada Comstock, the president of Radcliffe College, the women’s counterpart to Harvard. This initial connection between Rear Admiral Noyes and Ada Comstock ignited the women cryptanalyst recruiting program. Ada Comstock, at the request of the Navy, connected with Deans and Presidents at the Seven Sisters Ivy League schools: Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, Barnard, Vassar, Smith, and Wellesley, to identify women based on their educational competence, ability to keep a secret, United States citizenship, and lack of close ties with other nations.[31] Selected women attended weekly training courses in cryptographic security, basic and advanced cryptography, International Business Machines theory, code compilation, cryptanalytic worksheets preparation, and foreign languages: Japanese, German, Italian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese, frequently with Pulitzer Prize-winning professors.[32]

After the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, requested a list of the best seniors in the field of sciences from his cousin who happened to be the Dean at Goucher College, a four-year women’s college known for its science departments.[33] “As war engulfed the nation, the secret recruiting summonses continued to go out in 1942, 1943, and 1944 as cryptanalysis proved crucial to disrupting enemy operations and saving Allied lives.”[34] While the Navy focused on college recruitment, the Army targeted women in career fields available to women with quality education, school teachers.[35] The Army campaigned to recruit women at teaching colleges as well as school teachers in the field who were interested in a career change in remote cities and rural communities.

Recruiting cryptanalysts to decipher German and Japanese encrypted war codes was of the highest priority for the United States War Department. The massive emphasis on cryptanalysis led to a “harrowing” sense of urgency that may only be present in the event of total war.[36] “In July 1943, there were 269 male officers, 641 enlisted men, 96 female officers, and 1,534 enlisted women cryptanalysts.”[37] They represented a cross-section of United States women “from different economic and social classes, from all parts of the country, and from a multitude of racial origins and religions.”[38] At their peak, women comprised eighty percent of the total cryptanalyst force. Additionally, due to Eleanor Roosevelt’s advocacy, twelve to fifteen percent of the cryptanalysts were to be black.[39] Not only were cryptanalysts during WWII a diverse group, but the manner in which the cryptanalysts operated was particularly inclusive in its approach to novel ideas. “To a striking degree, the organizational structure for cryptanalysts was a ‘flat’ organization, an egalitarian work culture in which good ideas could emerge from any quarter and be taken seriously.”[40] By their own testimony, the cryptanalysts stated that the work environment was daunting, tedious, frustrating, and inculcated sadness but the importance of the national security mission kept them eager on the task.[41]

At their peak, women comprised eighty percent of the total [U.S.] cryptanalyst force.

The contributions of the cryptanalysts to the Allied victory cannot be directly measured but their impacts are clear.[42] President Eisenhower credited the women cryptanalysts with shortening the war by two years due to their ability to intercept, decipher, understand, and convey the enemy’s campaign, disposition of U-boats, Panzer divisions, Luftwaffe targets, and the High Command itself.[43] In the Pacific theater, the cryptanalysts, after discovering patterns in Japanese message traffic, built a “Purple” analog machine to decode Japanese diplomatic messages, which ultimately led to discovering a travel itinerary for Admiral Yamamoto, the Japanese commander who orchestrated the attack on Pearl Harbor.[44] Using the deciphered itinerary, Naval Admiral Nimitz devised a plan to target the Japanese Admiral, called Operation Vengeance.[45] On April 18, sixteen Army P-38s took off from Guadalcanal airfield for Bougainville where the fighters came into contact with Japanese fighters and two bombers. After United States forces shot down the Japanese bombers, “Yamamoto’s body was found in the Bougainville jungle, his white-gloved hand clutching his sword.”[46] The orchestrator of the ‘Day of Infamy’ was dead.[47]

By the time the United States entered WWII, it had domestic pools of talent from which to enlist for a special national security project.

The Race for the Atomic Bomb

The race for the atomic bomb is an exemplary example of the six talent management themes: centralized leadership, sense of urgency, diverse teams, shared sense of value in national security work, tailored university recruitment, and a working environment where the decision-makers value members for expertise. In the 1930s, as fascism crept over the European continent, brilliant scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and technologists fled to the United States. They fled Nazi or Mussolini regimes, delivering a powerful combination of talented and politically motivated émigrés.[48] This influx led to the United States’ cultivation of a world-class capacity in science and technology.[49] By the time the United States entered WWII, it had domestic pools of talent from which to enlist for a special national security project.

In 1942, President Roosevelt authorized a single project to combine various plutonium and uranium research efforts with the goal of weaponizing nuclear energy, the Manhattan Project, led by the head of the Army Corps of Engineers, Brigadier General Leslie Groves.[50] The United States set up the Military Policy Committee which included one representative each from the Army, the Navy, and the Office of Scientific Research and Development so that scientists would have better access to decision-makers.[51] The organizational structure under a centralized leader, which eliminated previous parallel but separate structures, helped remedy early deficiencies that slowed the decision-making process.[52] A decisive and demanding leader, General Groves selected three primary sites to manufacture the atomic bomb: Oak Ridge, Tennessee for uranium enrichment, Los Alamos, New Mexico for weapons research, and Hanford, Washington to produce plutonium from the uranium isotope U-238. [53] The reorganization of the atomic project under the Department of the Army with an Army general at the helm “renewed the project’s sense of urgency.”[54]

General Groves identified theoretical physicist, J. Robert Oppenheimer, to lead the creation, test, and evaluation of atomic bombs at the Los Alamos Laboratory in northern New Mexico beginning in 1943.[55] J. Robert Oppenheimer spent the first three months of 1943 crisscrossing the country traveling to theoretical physics and radiation laboratories at Stanford University, University of Minnesota, Princeton University, Cornell University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology to personally recruit scientists to work at Los Alamos.[56] Oppenheimer, who was opposed to serving in uniform, advocated keeping Los Alamos National Laboratory an academic community, mostly because many of the scientists objected to working as commissioned officers and feared that the military chain of command was ill-suited to scientific decision-making.”[57] In particular, Robert F. Bacher and Isidor I. Rabi from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Radiation Laboratory thought a military environment was not conducive to scientific research, to which Oppenheimer promised that the laboratory would remain civilian through 1943.[58] Every scientist “had the impression that Oppenheimer cared what each particular person was doing.”[59] “In talking to someone he made it clear that that person’s work was important for the success of the whole project.”[60] This effort proved to be successful and led to a population growth that doubled every four months.[61]

Oppenheimer created an environment where creative scientific ideas could flourish by orchestrating a forum, or colloquium, to foster open-ended brainstorming sessions with colleagues, students, and newcomers.[62] Furthermore, the Los Alamos laboratory organizational chart was a circle.[63] The flat organizational structure was meant to connect every possible group to every other group. Oppenheimer argued that members of each group needed to be in a room together on a regular basis to sort through difficult areas of research or experimentation.[64]

After delivering a proof of concept, the project expanded to its height of approximately 130,000 people working at thirty-seven facilities across the United States. The total cost of the Manhattan Project was almost $2 billion dollars and took two and a half years to complete. On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped Little Boy in the city center of Hiroshima, Japan, followed by Fat Man on August 9, 1945, in Nagasaki. Japanese Emperor Hirohito surrendered via radio broadcast on August 15, 1945, bringing an end to WWII.[65] The diverse set of talent not only brought WWII to an end but the United States scientists contributing to the war effort pulled the center of gravity for science and technology from Europe, leading to the United States becoming the scientific center of the world.[66]

Oppenheimer created an environment where creative scientific ideas could flourish by orchestrating a forum, or colloquium, to foster open-ended brainstorming sessions...

The Space Race

The Cold War space competition between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), which centered on the race to the moon, offers both an exceptionally revealing historical case and larger implications for space and technology development.”[67] The USSR launched Sputnik 1 into space on October 4, 1957, catapulting the world into the Space Age, and with it the space race between the United States and the USSR.[68] With a 500% increase in budget, the newly minted National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) employed 34,000 direct employees and 375,000 industrial and university contractors to propel its lunar landing program.

The United States solicited German-American engineer Dr. Werhner von Braun, former chief engineer of the Nazi V-2 program, to direct NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center where he and his team began the development of the Saturn V super-heavy lift launch vehicle.[69] Hundreds of skilled engineers, machinists, and fabricators from across the country spent thousands of hours developing each component of the Saturn V before the components were assembled at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.[70] In July 1959, NASA launched Apollo 11, and astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, and Michael Collins landed on the moon. Upon Armstrong’s famous words, “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” from the surface of the moon, the space race was effectively over.[71]

The [National Defense Education Act] helped the United States gain an advantage over the USSR during the space race...

In 1958, the United States, realizing the deficit in talented STEM students to keep pace with the country’s strategic vision, passed the National Defense Education Act (NDEA), which stimulated the advancement of education in STEM and foreign languages.[72] “The law provided federal funding to ‘insure trained manpower of sufficient quality and quantity to meet the national defense needs of the United States’”[73] According to James Brahm’s “STEM Education Should be a National Security Priority” in the Space Force Journal, due to Spacepower being an inherently technological instrument of politics and the fact that a state’s ability to exert influence in the space domain is linked to its technical-informational base, scientific and technological education fortifies national defense requirements.[74] Technological education increases the capacity of the scientific base, develops the technical understanding of non-technologists, improves resilience to disinformation, and inspires interest in space.[75]

The NDEA was designed to “promote the importance of science, mathematics, and foreign languages for students, authorize more than $1 billion toward decreasing student loans, funding for education at all levels, and funding for graduate fellowships.”[76] According to the United States Senate, the NDEA was one of the most successful initiatives to bolster higher education and is directly attributed to increasing university enrollments from 3.6 million in 1960 to 7.5 million in 1970.[77] The NDEA helped the United States gain an advantage over the USSR during the space race and “ultimately played an important role in the United States’ victory in the Cold War.”[78]

Harkening back to the fear that the United States lost the strategic edge over the Soviets in 1957, the Commission recommends that the United States pass an NDEA II. Specifically, the Commission recommends a second NDEA that focuses on developing digital talents, such as data science, computer science, mathematics, statistics, and information science, at the kindergarten through twelfth-grade levels and offering scholarships at the undergraduate, graduate, and doctorate levels. “Ultimately, the goal of NDEA II is to widen the digital talent pool by incentivizing programs for underrepresented Americans.”[79]

Recommendations

The three historical examples offer lessons learned on how the United States can cultivate talent pools to meet national security initiatives. Identified inferences of talent management principles from cryptanalysis during WWII, the race for the atomic bomb, and the Space Race are clearly definable goals under centralized leadership, a sense of urgency, a team of diverse members, a sense of collective value, tailored university recruitment, and an environment where the decision-makers value members for their technical expertise. The principles may be applied at both the Department of Defense and national levels. Departments of Defense: Navy, Army, and Air Force are desperately attempting to adopt AI solutions but lack a sense of urgency to realize AI capabilities.[80] “A lack of national urgency is dangerous at a time when underlying weaknesses have emerged in our AI ecosystem that impair innovation, and when viewed against the backdrop of China’s state-directed AI progress.”[81]

The Department’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer (CDAO), appointed in February 2022, should oversee the Service’s AI initiatives, and offer a standardized solution for structured data sets, while concurrently creating an organizational structure with each Service and Combatant Command’s CDAO to spur creative ideas for data storage and labeling, algorithm optimization, and AI use-cases.

Mimicking successes during WWII, the Department of Defense should create a centralized organizational structure with access to decision-makers across the military services while simultaneously fostering a flat organization for researchers, coders, and engineers. By eliminating cumbersome bureaucratic stovepipes, the CDAO has an opportunity to provide strategic direction and evoke a sense of urgency required to compete in the AI race with China.

In every historical example, the teams represented sets of diverse individuals. Approximately eighty percent of cryptanalysts during WWII were women. Likewise, many of the initiators behind the atomic bomb and the race to the moon came from repressed countries during WWII. The Department of Defense should relook at how it recruits diverse minds, diverse leaders, and diverse talent. In addition to recruiting university seniors by leveraging experts in STEM fields, the Department should consult specifically with those STEM experts with diverse backgrounds. Recruiting campaigns should focus on universities known for diverse students (e.g. Historically Black Colleges and Universities or universities with a large immigration population). At the federal level, federal agencies should consider retaining elite foreign students upon post-baccalaureate graduation or after post-doctoral fellowships.

Furthermore, the Department of Defense should cultivate respect for and promotion of technical competence. Specifically, the Services should track talent related to information warfare: computer language coding, data scientists, engineers, scientists, and AI-related skill sets even if that member is not slated to a position in which those skills are required. Only by tracking those skill sets can leaders offer employment flexibility and remain tied to specific capabilities throughout their service. Members hired for special duty assignments often display personal interest and initiative in the field for which they are hired. Fostering the honing of technical acumen for software developers, engineers, cyber operators, highly technical exploitation analysts, data scientists, and statisticians is in the best interest of the member and the U.S. military. Funding from a second NDEA should extend to job-enhancing training courses and certifications: information technology, software and hardware development, and AI. Finally, the NDEA II should provide funds for collaboration events during which government, industry, academia, and research laboratories may conduct technical demonstrations and compete in prize challenges. A recent example is the 2020 President’s Capture the Flag event. Teams of experts in AI and related fields would have the opportunity to collaborate to solve tough technology challenges.

...[DoD] should relook at how it recruits diverse minds, diverse leaders, and diverse talent.

Thus far the recommendations have been tailored to the U.S. Department of Defense. Cultivating pools of talented STEM members for military and federal service starts at the strategic level. During the Space Race, the United States passed legislation to build pools of people to cultivate the future national security workforce. The NDEA provided funds at the university level but failed to realize the potential of providing funds for initiatives at the primary and secondary education levels: elementary, middle, and high school. According to the 2018 National Science and Technology Committee on STEM (CoSTEM) 5-Year STEM Education Strategic Plan, “basic STEM concepts are best learned at an early age—in elementary and secondary school—because they are the essential prerequisites for a lifetime in the workplace.”[82] The CoSTEM further asserted that a basic understanding and comfort with STEM and STEM-enabled technology have become a prerequisite for full participation in modern society. The 2018 CoSTEM strategic plan coincides with the recommendations from the Commission to build a future AI-enabled workforce. The Commission, recognizing the future implications of the lack of technical training for American children, calls for the NDEA II to fund:

•STEM and AI-focused school and after-school programs,

•STEM and AI-focused summer learning programs,

•K-12 STEM teacher recruitment, training, and retention, and

•STEM scholarships, grants, and fellowships.[83]

The Commission also recommends that state legislatures consider making statistics in middle school and computer science principles in high school a requirement.

To achieve superiority in the AI race against China, the United States needs both a strategic initiative to build the next generation of AI-savvy Americans and a Department of Defense-level initiative to organize a construct to drive the AI initiative with a sense of urgency. The United States should not wait until competition turns into conflict to realize it should have invested more heavily in AI capabilities. A synergistic, whole-of-government approach is required for the United States to maintain a competitive advantage over China in the AI race. IAJ

Notes

1United States Department of Defense. Summary of the 2018 Department of Defense AI Strategy: Harnessing AI to Advance Our Security and Prosperity. February 12, 2019. https://media.defense.gov/2019/Feb/12/2002088963/-1/-1/1/SUMMARY-OF-DOD-AI-STRATEGY.PDF. 5; Bryan Walsh. “An insider’s view of ‘algorithmic warfare.’”Axios, November 17, 2021. https://www.axios.com/robert-workartificial-intelligence-warfare-5d8d362b-4fc9-4b9e-aef1-4afe97ca39be.html.

2Michael C. Horowitz, Gregory C. Allen, Elsa B. Kania, and Paul Scharre. “Strategic Competition in an Era of AI.” Center for a New American Security, July 2018. 3.

3Forrest Morgan and Raphael S. Cohen. “Military Trends and the Future of Warfare: The Changing Global Environment and its Implications for the U.S. Air Force.” RAND Corporation, 2020. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2849z3.html. 60.

4John Carl Villanueva. “How Many Atoms Are There in the Universe?” Universe Today, July 30, 2009. https://www.universetoday.com/36302/atoms-in-the-universe/.

5Horowitz, Allen, Kania, and Scharre. “Strategic Competition”, 9.

6Morgan and Cohen. “Military Trends”, 64.

7Ibid.

8Wang You and Chen Dingding, “Rising Sino-U.S. Competition in AI.” China Quarterly of International Strategic Studies 4. no. 2 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1142/S2377740018500148. 242.

9National Security Commission on AI. Final Report: National Security Commission on AI. March 19, 2021; United States Department of Defense. Summary of the 2018 Department of Defense AI Strategy: Harnessing AI to Advance Our Security and Prosperity. February 12, 2019. https://media.defense.gov/2019/Feb/12/2002088963/-1/-1/1/SUMMARY-OF-DOD-AI-STRATEGY.PDF. 7; Graham Webster, Rogier Creemers, Paul Triolo, and Elsa Kania. “Full Translation: China’s ‘New Generation AI Development Plan’ (2017).” New America, August 1, 2017. https://www.newamerica.org/cybersecurityinitiative/digichina/blog/full-translation-chinas-new-generation-artificial-intelligence-developmentplan-2017/.National Security Commission on AI. Final Report: National Security Commission on AI. March 19, 2021. 1.

10National Security Commission on AI. Final Report: National Security Commission on AI, 1.

11Wang You and Chen Dingding, “Rising Sino-U.S. Competition in AI.” China Quarterly of International Strategic Studies 4. no. 2 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1142/S2377740018500148. 255; National Security Commission on AI. Final Report: National Security Commission on AI. March 19, 2021. 2.

12National Security Commission on AI. Final Report: National Security Commission on AI, 32.

13Ibid, 121.

14Xi Jinping. “Secure a Decisive Victory in Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects and Strive for the Great Success of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era at the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (As Delivered).” Transcript, October 18, 2017. http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/download/Xi_Jinping’s_report_at_19th_CPC_National_Congress.pdf; Derek Grossman, Christian Curriden, Logan Ma, Lindsey Polley, J.D. Williams, Cortez A. Cooper III. Chinese Views of Big Data Analytics. RAND Corporation, 2020. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA176-1.html. 48., vii; Wang You and Chen Dingding, “Rising Sino-U.S. Competition in Artificial Intelligence.” China Quarterly of International Strategic Studies 4. no. 2 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1142/S2377740018500148; Daitian Li, Tony W. Tong, and Yangao Xiao. “Is China Emerging as the Global Leader in AI?” Harvard Business Review Analytic Services, February 18, 2021. https://hbr.org/2021/02/ischina-emerging-as-the-global-leader-in-ai.

15Office of Secretary of Defense. Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2021: A Report to Congress. Pursuant to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year, 2000. https://media.defense.gov/2021/Nov/03/2002885874/-1/-1/0/2021-CMPR-FINAL.PDF. 145.

16Derek Grossman, Christian Curriden, Logan Ma, Lindsey Polley, J.D.Williams, Cortez A. Cooper III. Chinese Views of Big Data Analytics. RAND Corporation, 2020. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA176-1.html., vii; Anthony Cordesman. “Chinese Strategy and Military Forces in 2021: A Graphic Net Assessment.” Center for Strategic and International Studies. August 3, 2021. https://www.csis.org/analysis/updated-report-chinese-strategy-and-military-forces-2021.

17Dahlia Peterson, Kayla Goode, and Diana Gehlhaus. “AI Education in China and the United States: A Comparative Assessment.” Center for Security and Emerging Technology, September 2021. https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/ai-education-in-china-and-the-united-states/. 1.

18Peterson, Goode, Gehlhaus. “AI Education”, 11.

19Wang You and Chen Dingding “Rising Sino-U.S. Competition in AI.” China Quarterly of International Strategic Studies 4. no. 2 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1142/S2377740018500148. 250.

20Peterson, Goode, Gehlhaus. “AI Education”, 22.

21Ibid, 14.

22Wang You and Chen Dingding “Rising Sino-U.S. Competition in Artificial Intelligence.” China Quarterly of International Strategic Studies 4. no. 2 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1142/S2377740018500148. 256.

23Peterson, Goode, Gehlhaus. “AI Education”, 34.

24National Security Commission on AI. Final Report: National Security Commission on AI, 173.

25Ibid, 126.

26Ibid, 124.

27Jennifer Wilcox. “Sharing the Burden: Women in Cryptology during World War II.” Center for Cryptologic History National Security Agency (1998); Liza Mundy. Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II. New York, NY: Hachette Books, 2018, 12.

28Dictionary.com. “Diversity.” Accessed April 1, 2022. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/diversity.

29Liza Mundy. Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II. New York: Hachette Books, 2018.

30Mundy. Code Girls, 4.

31Ibid, 5-6.

32Ibid, 6.

33Ibid, 6.

34Ibid, 7.

35Ibid, 8.

36Ibid, 141.

37Ibid, 182.

38Ibid, 175.

39Ibid, 208.

40Ibid, 211.

41Ibid, 141.

42Jennifer Wilcox. “Sharing the Burden”, 1.

43Sinclair McKay. The Secret Lives of Codebreakers: The Men and Women Who Cracked the Enigma Code at Bletchley Park. New York: Penguin Group, 2010.

44Jennifer Wilcox. “Sharing the Burden”, 1.

45Mundy. Code Girls, 200.

46Ibid, 201.

47Liza Mundy. Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II. New York: Hachette Books, 2018. 201.

48David Kaiser. Interviewed by Cindy Kelly. Voices of the Manhattan Project, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MA, September 8, 2014. https://www.manhattanprojectvoices.org/oral-histories/davidkaisers-interview.

49David Kaiser. Interview.

50History.com Editors. “Manhattan Project.” History, January 17, 2020. https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/the-manhattan-project.

51Francis George Gosling. The Manhattan Project: Making the Atomic Bomb. Pennsylvania: Diane Publishing, 1999. 15-16.

52Gosling. The Manhattan Project, 16.

53Ibid, 37.

54Ibid, 15.

55History.com Editors. “Manhattan Project.” History, January 17, 2020. https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/the-manhattan-project.

56Gosling. The Manhattan Project, 1965.

57Ibid, 37.

58Ibid, 37.

59Ibid, 37.

60Richard Rhodes. The Making of the Atomic Bomb. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2012. 570.

61J. Robert Oppenheimer. Interviewed by Stephane Groueff. Voices of the Manhattan Project, location unknown, 1965.

62David Kaiser. Interview.

63Ibid.

64Ibid.

65History.com Editors. “Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” History, April 26, 2021. https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki.

66David Kaiser. Interview.

67Andrew S. Erickson. “The Space Race Revisited: The Lunar Landing and Its Larger Lessons.” In Proceedings of the Fifty-first History Symposium of the International Academy of Astronautics. American Astronautical Society (AAS) History Series. Vol. 50, edited by Michael L. Ciancone, 289-342. San Diego, CA: Univelt, 2020. https://www.andrewerickson.com/2020/08/the-space-race-revisited-the-lunar-landingand-its-larger-lessons/.

68History.com Editors. “The Space Race.” History, February 21, 2020. https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/space-race.

69Cincinnati Republic. “The Space Age: A Lookback at American Ingenuity.” July 29, 2019. http://www.cincinnatirepublic.com/the-space-age-a-lookback-at-american-ingenuity/.

70Cincinnati Republic. “The Space Age”.

71History.com Editors. “The Space Race”.

72Linda J. Sheffield, “Mathematically Promising Students from the Space Age to the Information Age.” The Mathematics Enthusiast 3, no. 1, (2006): https://scholarworks.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1039&context=tme.

73U.S. Congress. House. National Defense Education Act. H. Res. 13247. 85th Cong. (August 21, 1958). https://history.house.gov/HouseRecord/Detail/15032436195.

74James Brahm, “STEM Education”.

75Ibid.

76National Security Commission on AI. Final Report: National Security Commission on AI, 175.

77U.S. Senate. “Sputnik Spurs Passage of the National Defense Education Act.” October 4, 1957. https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Sputnik_Spurs_Passage_of_National_Defense_Education_Act.htm.

78National Security Commission on AI. Final Report: National Security Commission on AI,175.

79Ibid, 175.

80Ibid, 77.

81Ibid,185.

82National Science and Technology Council, Committee on STEM Education. Charting a Course for Success: America’s Strategy for STEM Education. Executive Office of the President of the United States, December 1, 2018. v.

83National Security Commission on AI. Final Report: National Security Commission on AI, 422.

Once an Advisor:

How Security Force Assistance is Essential for the American Way of War and Deterrence in Strategic Competition

by Michael Nilsen

Authoritarianism is on the global march, and we must join with like-minded allies and partners to revitalize democracy the world over … America is back. Diplomacy is back. Alliances are back. We are looking irrevocably toward the future and all that we can achieve for the American people—together. Let’s get to work.

— President Biden, Interim National Security Strategic Guidance

“America’s military has no preordained right to victory on the battlefield.”

— Secretary of Defense Mattis, National Defense Strategy 2018

The current liberal, U.S. led, rules-based world order is under siege as Russia invades Ukraine, and democratic nations awaken to a possible New Cold War.[1] Operating with a different paradigm for war, many state and non-state actors challenge the rules-based international system. COVID-19 and extremist organizations have stressed that system, causing many democracies and partners to focus internally. With these democracies focused on internal politics, states such as China and Russia exploit and undermine the international order to advance their position of power.[2] Despite COVID-19, non-state actors such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria also act as vectorless systems that destabilize nations around the world. Even though the U.S. Army will shift focus back to echelons above brigade multi-domain operations for large-scale combat operations this is not enough for effective deterrence against autocratic adversaries. Flowing below conventional and nuclear deterrence, these adversaries find asymmetric gray zone ways to counter the United States’ hard power capability and credibility.[3] To complicate matters, the U.S. faces mounting debt and shrinking defense budgets for the next generation.

Major Michael Nilsen is a U.S. Army infantry officer who has served in the XVIII Airborne Corps and the 2d Security Force Assistance Brigade. As a task force commander in Afghanistan, he directly supported Operation Resolute Support campaign objectives and strategic requirements. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the U.S. Military Academy and a Master in Military Arts and Science from the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. Nilsen is level II Joint Qualified, a U.S. Army CGSC Master Tactician, and the current 2d Cavalry Regiment chief of plans.

Historically, the American Way of War used a strategy of attrition known as containment against the Soviet Union with emphasis on gray zone activities to increase their relative position during strategic competition.[4] With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the devastating conventional victory of Desert Storm, and a post 9/11 world, the U.S. and its allies have focused on other priorities, almost forgetting about the utility of the gray zone during the competition continuum. As will be demonstrated in this article, this becomes especially true for Phases 0 and 1. While the West has forgotten, adversaries like China and Russia learned from the American Way of War. Like chess or Go, their posturing will dramatically shape current and future potential conflicts in their favor, possibly negating Western conventional or nuclear deterrence. If the U.S. and its Allies do not also compete, our adversaries will dominate us before the first conventional military engagement. Given national bureaucratic limitations and a budget constrained environment, how does the U.S. Army deter state and non-state actors in the gray zone as part of an interagency effort to achieve a position of advantage?

Purpose

The purpose of the research in this article is threefold. First, the U.S. Army must clarify its role in Phases 0-1 as building partnership, posture, and position to prevent and shape conflict through integrated deterrence and campaigning. This requires the Army and larger Joint Force to shift its paradigm for Security Force Assistance (SFA), stability operations, and how a Theater Army can set an area of responsibility (AOR) besides through sustainment. Instead of viewing SFA as simply a way to support counter-insurgency operations in conflict, the Army must understand how to best employ SFA in the gray zone during Phases 0-1 for the competition continuum as demonstrated in the above figure. This requires a comprehensive approach using SFA/security cooperation to achieve national ends. With the U.S. and allies enabling a free and open world trade, the Army with partners and interagency can employ SFA proactively through campaigning to prevent and shape conflicts for the American Way of War and policy. To support this paradigm shift, this paper will also demonstrate how many of our peers, such as China, already operate in the gray zone to obtain a position of advantage. Like the Byzantine Grand Strategy, the result of choosing the right partners globally should be a Force in Being, or an already prepared, politically aligned coalition ready to counter threats throughout the competition continuum to support the U.S.-led international order.[5]

Historically, the American Way of War used a strategy of attrition known as containment against the Soviet Union with emphasis on gray zone activities...

Second, this article will demonstrate how SFA is an effective economy of force method for deterrence, American Way of War, and U.S. policy. Given the domestic political and economic environment, the Army must rely on more economy of forces means to achieve the same ways and ends. Ideally, the U.S. could field more Armored Brigade Combat Team (ABCTs), but this is neither cost effective or a way to counter adversaries from exploiting the gray zone. By employing a whole-of-government approach and a smaller conventional footprint, the U.S. can go small and longer for a more holistic deterrence effect.

Finally, this article will demonstrate the limitations of SFA while outlining tailorable options for senior leaders. Like all elements of national power, SFA has limitations and is not a ubiquitous solution to every problem. These limitations will also demonstrate how important choosing the right partner is for U.S. national interests and setting an AOR for a U.S. Theater Army. This research is valuable to the military enterprise because it outlines a tailorable, cost-effective grand strategy for the U.S. and its allies to prevent or shape current and future conflicts.

...this article focuses on ABCTs due to their more significant conventional deterrence effect compared to similar formations...

Scope/Proposed Methodology

This research judges the suitability, acceptability, feasibility, sustainability of synchronizing SFA means through Security Force Assistance Brigades (SFABs), National Guard Partnership Programs, and Special Operation Forces (SOF). Given a budget constraint environment and the multiple authorities for SFA, the Department of Defense (DoD) must take both whole-of-government and comprehensive approaches for employing SFA effectively for the right partner with other Allies and U.S. government agencies. Additionally, given a limited budget for the next decade, the sustainability criteria for setting a theater with a minimal footprint becomes critical. Finally, this article will assess the patterns between all findings to define the necessity and limitations of partnership for advancing the United States’ position within an AOR.

This article applies a research strategy focused on qualitative case study analysis of SFA historical examples from SFABs, National Guard Partnership Programs, and SOF and its impacts on partner capacity and posturing within a region to allow the U.S. an advantageous position compared to adversaries. It uses a case study qualitative analysis to examine the cost-benefit analysis for using SFA as a method for deterrence instead of historical means of U.S. Army hard power such as ABCTs and to understand how SFA affects a host nation’s capability for national power through a diplomacy, information, military, and economic (DIME) model.

For conventional U.S. Army hard power forces, this article focuses on ABCTs due to their more significant conventional deterrence effect compared to similar formations such as Airborne Infantry Brigade Combat Team (IBCTs). Additionally, with the loss of tanks in the Marine Corps, ABCTs are the most distinct formations that the U.S. Army can bring to the joint fight. Finally, ABCTs are the costliest land maneuver formation to maintain and will bring the most economic and logistical strain on the U.S. Army.

ANALYSIS

Results and Overview

In the following sections of this article the case study methodology is analyzed using the instruments of national power as variables while a country received U.S. SFA/security cooperation. Organized into seven parts, this analysis includes four cases from different time periods and combatant commands: South Korea (1950-2020), Colombia (1980-2020), Lebanon (2007-2020), and Somalia (1990-2020).

Since there is no recognized quantitative measurement for DIME, these case studies will use various qualitative and quantitative data points to analyze trends to ascertain pertinent trends and themes. The results, listed on a descending DIME scale were: South Korea had an exponential DIME increase, Colombia and Lebanon had moderate to strong increases, and Somalia had a strong decrease.

Four major trends became apparent in the analysis: choosing the right partner, deterrence, unity of command, and setting the theater with a smaller footprint. Regardless of case study, the analysis reinforces themes found in background research that choosing the right partner is critical and can be the most important factor for SFA. Conversely, SFA is not a magic pill and picking the wrong partner can be disastrous.[6]

INDOPACOM: South Korea (1950-2020)

Regarding SFA, South Korea is an improbable outlier, but outliers can change the world. Transformed from a corrupt and ineffective military to one of the best militaries in the world, South Korea experienced an exponential increase in DIME over 70 years. This could be for various reasons such as having the best OE for unity of effort, actively facing existential threats. Another possible reason for such an exponential increase is the consistent and massive U.S. commitment to South Korea compared to the other case studies.[7] With over 70 years of U.S. commitment, South Korea has exponentially benefited from U.S. support, leading multiple partners to support the country.[8]

For South Korea’s diplomatic and information instruments, it experienced strong growth from 1950 to 2021. At the beginning of the Korean War, South Korea was a corrupt government with little diplomatic and information capability. Bifurcated at the 38th parallel between the Communist North and the Democratic South, Korea had experienced several decades under the rule of the Japanese. With the division between north and south, South Korea’s identity was relatively new, and the country had numerous internal problems when North Korea invaded in the summer of 1950. Though the U.S. backed South Korea, it had few allies in the region, very little diplomatic standing in the world community, and was a fragile and undeveloped democracy.[9]

Within 70 years, South Korea transformed into one of the top soft powers in the world. Today, there are numerous soft power rankings that consistently include South Korea in the top twenty countries. This includes the Portland Soft Power thirty, the Lowey Diplomacy, and the Brand Finance World Soft Power Indexes. Additionally, South Korea continues to increase soft power. For instance, South Korea decreased its ranking from twenty-two to nineteen within the last four years for the Soft Power 30. Much of South Korea’s current increase in soft power resulted from national policies to support the United States’ partnerships around the world to deter adversaries. Over time, many South Korea’s leaders attribute their exponential increase due to the massive U.S. whole-ofgovernment commitment. This increase resulted in many consistently calling South Korea the “Miracle on the Han River” due to its rapid economic growth after the Korean War.[10]

With over 70 years of U.S. commitment, South Korea has exponentially benefited from U.S. support...

Despite its small size and being on a peninsula, South Korea has expanded its diplomatic network, provides its own SFA in support of U.N. mandates for fragile countries, and possesses a desired culture. Before the Korean War, South Korea had little to no diplomatic relations besides with the U.S. Today, South Korea has diplomatic relations with over 180 countries.[11] The country transformed from a corrupt, undeveloped country to one that regularly sends its military on diplomatic missions to assist with U.N. stability operations around this world. Poignantly, South Korean military forces regularly support U.N. SFA/security cooperation missions with Italy and other European Advisory units to train the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), one of the other case studies for this paper. As for its culture and information, the world constantly desires it. With several very successful pop culture events like the award-winning Parasite, Train to Busan, Old Boy, and Gangnam Style choreography, South Korea is a cultural powerhouse that has great diplomatic and informational influence beyond its small, limited peninsula shores.[12]

Militarily, South Korea transformed from a weak, underdeveloped 100,000 Soldier strong military to one of the top militaries during the war. During the Korean War, the UNC established the Korean Military Advisory Group (KMAG) with the mission of executing SFA to professionalize the Republic of Korea (ROK) Armed Forces. The KMAG was extremely successful as they trained over half a million South Koreans and increased the size of the ROK Army from 100,000 to over 200,000 while engaging with adversaries. Due to the KMAG’s efforts, ROK forces bore the preponderance of fighting against communist forces by the end of the war, holding gains from 38th Parallel. Despite never having more than 2,000 advisors, the KMAG owed its success to making the ROK forces the best version of themselves and independent, not a mirror image of the U.S.[13]

Despite its small size and relatively obscure beginning, South Korea has transformed into an economic monster...

SFA for South Korea continued for the next 70 years with a unified command between the U.S. and ROK. With the ceasefire between North and South Koreas, the KMAG and other United Nations Command (UNC) elements dissolved into the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK), a unified command between U.S. and ROK forces. To sustain unity of command and effort, the UNC and deputy commanders are U.S. and ROK leaders that have similar roles in both the UNC and USFK. For instance, the UNC and USFK commander is the same person. Since 1957, the USFK has supported the UNC through SFA with ROK Forces.[14] This included not only deterring North Korean and Chinese conventional aggression to the North, but also communist insurgencies within the country.[15] It appears that SFA and security cooperation efforts had tremendous effect as the South Korea military size and spending grew to over half a million people and $40 billion dollars.[16] Through seventy years of training, advising, and assisting, ROK forces have become one of the most powerful militaries in the world and has taken the lead on most USFK and UNC security efforts on the peninsula.

South Korea has become an economic powerhouse. Despite being an underdeveloped country in 1950, South Korea became the “Miracle on the Han River” as it became a developed country with a strong economy within a decade after the Korean War.[17] This trend continued through the next 60 years with South Korea. There are some decades in which South Korea had double-digit GDP growth for almost the entire decade. [18] Despite its small size and relatively obscure beginning, South Korea has transformed into an economic monster with great economic influence in the INDOPACOM AOR.[19]

South Korea is an outlier case study, but such outliers can transform the host nation and the world. It is a case study example that demonstrates how SFA with other security cooperation activities can dramatically transform a host nation, resulting in the betterment of the nation and larger region. Even though a repeat of South Korea is improbable, it is not impossible. It will probably require several conditions like the host nation’s Clausewitzian trinity being politically aligned with U.S. interests and facing both internal and external existential threats.

SOUTHCOM: Colombia (1980-2020)

Though not as strong as South Korea, Colombia had positive trends across DIME. It is also a case study that involved a country that faced its greatest challenges from internal non-state adversaries. Despite numerous non-state entities such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and Pablo Escobar causing instability within the region, Colombia transformed into a relatively stable, regional power. Through security cooperation, the U.S. helped with this transformation as the DOS took lead. It employed various U.S. agencies such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), and the DoD to achieve U.S. and Colombian shared political ends. Under the authority of the U.S. Ambassador, the DOS exercised an effective unity of effort to achieve U.S. objectives.

U.S. SFA efforts within Colombia faced many challenges such as the most powerful criminal in human history, Pablo Escobar, the drug trade that continued to degrade Colombia’s legitimacy even after Escobar’s death, and the FARC insurgency that attempted to overthrow the legitimate Colombian government.[20] Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Colombia was a place where a drug king in jail was more powerful than the Colombian President.[21] Due to consistent U.S. commitment to the country over 40 years, Colombia has become a regional power.

Colombia’s diplomatic and informational national power has seen a relatively modest increase, but it faced many challenges to get there. Due to its instability in the last quarter of the 20th Century, Colombia has been more focused on domestic politics than increasing its international diplomatic power. Aligning itself with the U.S. during the Cold War, Colombia has received decades of commitment from the U.S. and support from international organizations such as the UN and Organization of American States (OAS). Despite this support, Colombia essentially became a narco-democracy in the 1980s and 90s. During this time, Colombia was on the verge of becoming a failed state run by drug cartels such as the Medellin and Cali Cartels.[22] Becoming the major suppliers of cocaine throughout the world, these cartels increased instability within the region and even within the U.S., resulting in the number of deaths due to cocaine increasing sixfold over 30 years.[23]

Escobar and the Drug Cartels were not the only non-state adversary that Colombia had to overcome to increase its diplomatic and informational power. During the 20th Century, the FARC executed an insurgency within Colombia, dramatically decreasing the Colombian government’s instruments of national power and ability to govern its borders. With mostly civilians caught in the crossfire, over 220,000 people died in the decade-long conflict between the FARC and the Colombian government. Additionally, over 10,000 deaths or injuries occurred due to FARC IEDs and more than 17% of the Colombian population has officially registered as a victim because of Colombian Government and FARC engagements. With all this instability within the country and region from non-state adversaries, Colombia was very weak diplomatically and informationally, tarnishing its international standing.[24]

U.S. SFA efforts within Colombia faced many challenges such as the most powerful criminal in human history, Pablo Escobar...

With 40 years of U.S. SFA and security cooperation commitment with various government agencies achieving unity of effort under the U.S. Ambassador, Colombia increased its diplomatic and informational power. As Colombia used to be a “narco democracy” run by the drug cartel while also fighting a civil war with the FARC, the country now enjoys relative peace and stability.[25] This internal stability allows it to increase its diplomatic and informational capabilities, becoming a regional power.[26] For instance, Colombia’s soft power consistently has increased allowing it to be in the top 60 countries for soft power within the world. Regionally, it has become one of the top four soft power states while also becoming one of the top Brand Finance Tier 2 Soft Power countries.[27] While doing all this, it has decreased the drug trade, almost cutting it in half and increased the appeal of Colombia’s culture.[28] Another powerful example is Disney setting its new movie, Encanto, in Colombia as a sign more people embrace Colombian culture internationally and recognize Colombia’s soft power progress. [29] This becomes even more evident as the movie’s song We Don’t Talk about Bruno has become the #1 most popular Disney song ever, influencing a global generation of children.[30]

Somalia is a case study of a bad partner in which almost all aspects of its Clausewitzian trinity do not align with U.S. interests.

Colombia saw a strong increase in military power. Within 40 years, the military went from a relatively ineffective and corrupt organization to a very professional force.[31] This is reflective of how the Colombia military has grown from 66,000 to over 450,000 within a 20 period while exponentially increasing its military spending from $1 to over $10 billion.[32] With both monetary, training, and advising support through SFA, numerous U.S. agencies applied a whole-of-government approach that enabled the Colombian security forces to defeat the FARC insurgency, allowing the Colombian government to relatively reintegrate them back into society.[33] Additionally, the Colombia security forces became more effective against the drug trade, cutting the amount of cocaine production in half for almost a decade.[34] These actions not only brought stability and security to Colombia but to the larger Latin American region.[35]

Colombia also saw a dramatic increase in its economic capability. Potentially due to the increased stability within the region, Colombia saw its GDP increase from $33.4 billion to over $270 billion dollars due to consistent almost double-digit growth. Its GDP per capita also increased exponentially from approximately $1,000 to over $8,000 within the same time period, resulting in Colombia developing a middle class within the country.[36]

EUROCOM/AFRICOM:
Somalia (1990-2020)

Somalia is a case study of a bad partner in which almost all aspects of its Clausewitzian trinity do not align with U.S. interests. Even though it did not have very strong diplomatic and informational power before 1990, Somalia has lost almost all its soft power influence due to its ongoing civil war. Before Somalia became a battleground between various tribes, VEOs, and the Somalian government, it was an autocrat that ruled with absolute control. With the end of the Cold War, Somalia lost a great deal of SFA/security cooperation from the Soviet Union, causing conditions for the central leadership to lose power with the various groups. This resulted in a humanitarian crisis of over 100,000 people persisting, forcing the U.S. to be involved. The U.S. shifted to a direct action (DA) approach with TF Ranger to support United Nations Missions in Somalia (UNSOM I and II). With the disastrous results of the Black Hawk Down, the U.S. has continued to oscillate between a security cooperation and DA approach with the attempt to contain the country’s instability from completely spilling over in the region, which is in an essential global economic choke point.[37]

Somalia has even less diplomatic or informational power today than what little it had in 1990. Compared to the other case studies, at least one of the many soft power indexes will rank each of them. The opposite appears true with Somalia as it is absent from all searchable soft power indexes.[38] Additionally, Somalia consistently ranks at the bottom of the USAID SFI, being in the top five most unstable countries in the world for more than a decade.[39] As discussed with the Lebanon and Columbia case studies, there appears to demonstrate a strong relationship between stability and diplomatic and informational power. Since it has been in a state of civil war for almost two decades, Somalia lacks the institutional capacity to improve its soft power.[40]

In a similar manner to soft power, Somalia experienced a strong decrease in military power. Before its Civil War, Somalia had an average military that could control its borders.[41] Currently, it ranks well below average at 139 of 142 countries in the world according to the Global Firepower Index. It also continues to decrease based on Somalia’s instability Additionally, the Somali military cannot control its own borders. There are at least four other factions that claim sovereignty in Somalia besides the national government, various tribes, and VEOs within the region.[42] These conditions reflect Somalia’s military trends over twenty years. For instance, Somalia’s 225,000 military dramatically decreased to approximately 20,000 and its military spending from 1990 to 2013 was completely dependent on foreign assistance.[43]

Somalia’s increase in economic power is an anomaly. Despite an ongoing civil war for almost two decades, Somalia’s economy more than tripled from $1 billion to almost $5 billion.[44] There is little to nothing written about Somalia’s economic growth despite numerous issues. Despite the hesitation to attribute Somalia’s growth to a rising tide raises all boats argument, this paper cannot ascertain any other alternative to explain such an economic increase. This key location, the increase in globalization, and the capitalism effect on the world probably increased Somalia’s GDP despite its instability.

Summary

Based on case studies, it appears there is a strong relationship between SFA, stability, and a host nation’s national power. The most critical aspect of this relationship appears to be whether the U.S. has chosen the right partner. This makes sense since SFA is about relationships and having the right partner is critical to maximize the effects of SFA for national power. DIME changes appear to be proportional to how good of a partner the host nation is in each case study. Again, a good partner appears to be one in which its Clausewitzian trinity aligns with U.S. interests and the rules-based international order’s democratic values. As seen with Lebanon, Columbia, and South Korea, this host nation trinity can become more aligned with those interests and values. The lack of attraction in Somalia is probably one of the reasons why SFA had limited effect.

...SFA is about relationships and having the right partner is critical to maximize the effects of SFA for national power.

Partnership leads to posture and a position of advantage for both the U.S. and the host nation. With the SFA supported by security cooperation helping to increase a host nation’s stability and DIME, the host nation can become more of a regional or international power that supports the rules-based international order. Colombia is the best example which was fraught with numerous non-state adversaries. With the U.S. SFA, Colombia defeated most of them and helped increase democratic influence within the region. With this increase in influence, the U.S. and the rules-based international order increased its posture and position through partnership with minimal cost. SFA empowers a host nation’s whole-of-government, not just security forces. In South Korea and Colombia, the SFA units had unity of command under different U.S. agencies, but also empowered the larger governmental institutions that supported those security forces. Diplomatically, informationally, and economically, the U.S. can deter both state and non-state adversaries with supply chains connected to the Build Back Better Program (B3W). Who the U.S. partners with sends a message to the world about the rules-based international order’s democratic values. Additionally, many nations do not have the same bureaucratic division between political and military entities like the U.S., leading to relationship building between SFA units and a host nation military to have local political effects as well. For instance, numerous Colombia and South Korean political leaders received U.S. SFA during their military service. These politicians and their supporters appear to act as a political counterweight to deter numerous state and non-state actors in the gray zone that attempt to coerce host nations to their agenda.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

“The purpose of war is to make a better peace.”

— Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart

It will not be easy, there will be costs… the darkness that drives autocracy is ultimately no match for the flame of liberty that lights the souls of free people everywhere.

— President Biden, 2022 Warsaw Speech on Russia Ukraine Conflict

The American Way of War is still suitable but lost some of its efficacy because our adversaries have adapted to it. In response to the tremendous U.S. conventional and nuclear deterrence such as Desert Storm, state and non-state adversaries target host nations Will to Fight in the gray zone during competition to achieve advantageous positions that will shape future crises and conflicts. With the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the 31st Anniversary of Desert Storm ground campaign, the U.S. and rules-based international order awakened to a possible New Cold War between democracy and autocracy.[45] Given how autocratic state and non-state adversaries employ a strategy of flow to undermine the rules-based international order, the U.S. must empower its current and potential allies while operating in a budget constraint environment. By using SFA and security cooperation as a strategy of flow to collision through Kilcullen’s proposed Go Byzantine Strategy, the U.S. can empower a democratically aligned web of nations while deterring autocratic adversaries in terms of nuclear, conventional, and gray zone credibility and capability.[46] SFA and security cooperation will be essential to the American Way of War and strategic competition as partnership can lead to improved posture and position, but first the U.S. must choose the right partner. Using a case study methodology, it analyzed how SFA is essential to both deterrence but also how it applies to the American Way of War. First, the Western and Eastern ways of war are strategies of flow and collision respectively. Second, that there are national and international legal definitions of war that limit it to just conflict on the conflict continuum, but most actors act as if war is the entire continuum across DIME.

Conclusions

Security Force Assistance and Deterrence, Partnership, and Posture

There are four conclusions that align with the above research questions. The first and most critical conclusion is that choosing the right partner is essential for maximizing SFA effects. As described in Chapter 4, this paper observed a DIME increase for three of the four case studies with one being an exponential increase. Additionally, if it was not for the disastrous 2020 Beirut Port Explosion, all three of those case studies would have seen a strong or exponential increase in DIME. This demonstrates the first finding that choosing the right partner is critical for SFA and security cooperation. As depicted by Figure 20, the right partner is an actor who’s Clausewitzian trinity of society, government, and military are willing to embrace democratic values while also aligning with U.S. interests. Though an outlier, South Korea is an example of an outlier that can affect the world. With its Clausewitzian trinity aligning with U.S. interests while receiving over 70 years of security cooperation, South Korea transformed from an undeveloped country to an international powerhouse that influences the entire global. Though this paper originally assessed another outlier as improbable, Ukraine has become one as it represents democracy in the current conflict.

By picking the right partner, it appears the U.S. increases that partner’s credibility and capability across the DIME spectrum. This also furthered the U.S.-led international order’s position, allowing it to achieve a position of advantage through the DIME spectrum or denying adversaries one. As our adversaries employ a strategy of flow to degrade an actor’s Will to Fight during competition, SFA can build capability and credibility essential for deterrence, American Way of War, and policy.

Second, Security force assistance and cooperation are not magic bullets. Though SFA and security cooperation are low cost compared to Regionally Aligned Forces deployments, CSGs, and other means, it does not preclude it from disastrous results. Picking a poor partner such as Somalia after the civil war began can result in a continuous sunk cost for the U.S. government and its allies. Despite almost 20 years of oscillating strategy for Somalia, the U.S. continues to struggle with the conflict. Somalia saw a dramatic decrease in DIME probably because it is not a good partner. At best, the U.S. and its allies have adopted a strategy of containment to prevent the Somali Civil War from destabilizing the region.

Setting a Theater with a Smaller Footprint

For the fourth conclusion, there is strong quantitative evidence that SFA enables a theater army to set a theater by increasing host nation capability and credibility to either prevent conflict or shape an operational environment that is fortuitous for the American Way of War. As with picking the right partner in the right location being the most critical aspect of SFA, the U.S. can improve its posture within a region to achieve or maintain a decisive position with a small footprint. Regardless of the DIME result, all case studies eventually were able to employ a smaller footprint because of SFA units. This was especially true for Lebanon and Colombia. In those case studies, the U.S. only employed a small force over decades through numerous government agencies to improve the host nation. SFA units in these case studies allowed the U.S. increased access within the region that has and can continue to influence the respective COCOM’s theater posture plans. Additionally, these small forces empowered their respective case studies to become more independent and act as a counterweight to adversarial influences within their respective regions. In a similar manner, Colombian security forces helped transform it from a narco democracy to defeating the FARC and reducing the cocaine trade. With the right partners, the U.S. can employ a small low-cost effective comprehensive approach to prevent conflicts or shape operational environments.

By picking the right partner, it appears the U.S. increases that partner’s credibility and capability across the DIME spectrum.

Summary

Our adversaries have adapted to the American Way of War, reducing its suitability in the 21st Century. Though SFA is not a magic bullet to everything, a proactive approach has the potential to increase credibility and capability for current and potential democratic allies. As with every relationship, the U.S. must pick the right partner because our partners send a clear message to potential allies and adversaries. It also appears to help a Theater Army achieve an information advantage within the host nation and larger region as well. To counter this rise in authoritarianism and its coercive strategies, the U.S. can apply a strategy of flow to collision, or Go Byzantine Strategy, to augment the current U.S. DIME attritional strategy. In the past, the President signed a combined DOS and DOD security cooperation strategy. Due security cooperation ’s importance for deterrence and American Way of War, perhaps it is time for that again. Through a comprehensive approach, the U.S. and its allies can employ SFA and security cooperation to build Will to Fight and capability that will prevent and shape conflicts to become fortuitous for the American Way of War. IAJ

Notes

1White House, Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, March 2021, 6, 9-10; Aamer Madhani and Josh Boak, “7 Key Takeaways from Biden’s 2022 State of the Union Speech,” PBS (Public Broadcasting Service, March 2, 2022), https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/7-key-takeaways-frombidens-2022-state-of-the-union-speech.

2United States Congress, “Renewed Great Power Competition: Implications for Defense ...” Congressional Research Service., December 2, 2021. https://sgp.fas.org/crs/natsec/R43838.pdf; Liang, Qiao, and Wang Xiangsui. Unrestricted Warfare. Beijing: PLA Literature and Arts Publishing House Arts, 1999.141-146; David Kilcullen. In Dragons and the Snakes: How the Rest Learned to Fight the West. S.l.: OXFORD UNIV PRESS U.S., 2022. 10-20; Brian Steed, “Narrative in Culture, Center of Gravity, and the Golden Azimuth.” Great Power Competition: The Changing Landscape of Global Politics. US Army Command and General Staff College Press US Army Combined Arms Center. https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/combat-studies-institute/csi-books/great-power-competition-the-changing-landscape-ofglobal-geopolitics.pdf; Robert M. Gates. “Helping Others Defend Themselves: The Future of U.S. Security Assistance.” Foreign Affairs 89, no. 3 (2010). https://doi.org/https://www.jstor.org/stable/25680910.

3Ibid.

4Ibid. As discussed in the CRS report, the Biden administration replaced great power competition with strategic competition.

5MAJ James Dawdy and I came up with the term Force in Being to describe the web of partners that would work together to deter adversaries. Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahon’s concept, a fleet in being, in his book The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660–1783 inspired the concept; David Kilcullen,10-20, 67, 237-240.

6“2022 Military Strength Ranking,” Global Firepower - World Military Strength, accessed February 22, 2022, https://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-listing.php.

7“U.S. Security Cooperation with Korea - United States Department of State,” U.S. Department of State (U.S. Department of State, January 14, 2021), https://www.state.gov/u-s-security-cooperation-withkorea/; “2022 South Korea Military Strength.” Global Firepower - World Military Strength. Accessed February 22, 2022. https://www.globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength-detail.php?country_id=south-korea; “Brand Finance Global Soft Power Index 2020 - Brandirectory.” Accessed February 22, 2022. https://brandirectory.com/globalsoftpower/download/brand-finance-global-soft-power-index-2020.pdf.

8“U.S. Security Cooperation with Korea - United States Department of State,” U.S. Department of State (U.S. Department of State, January 14, 2021), https://www.state.gov/u-s-security-cooperation-withkorea/; “South Korea Military Size 1985-2022,” MacroTrends, accessed February 22, 2022, https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/KOR/south-korea/military-army-size; Sawyer, Robert K., and Walter G. Hermes. Military Advisors in Korea: KMAG in Peace and War. Honolulu, HI: University Press of the Pacific, 2005.

9Ibid.; “International Contributions.” United Nations Command &gt; Organization &gt; Contributors. https://www.unc.mil/Organization/Contributors/.

10“Brand Finance Global Soft Power Index 2020 - Brandirectory.” Accessed February 22, 2022. https://brandirectory.com/globalsoftpower/download/brand-finance-global-soft-power-index-2020.pdf.

11“Global Diplomacy Index,” https://globaldiplomacyindex.lowyinstitute.org, accessed February 25, 2022, https://globaldiplomacyindex.lowyinstitute.org/#.

12“‘Gangnam’ Mania,” The Wall Street Journal (Dow Jones &amp; Company, September 20, 2012), https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10000872396390444620104578008230854641420; “South Korea.” Soft Power. Accessed February 22, 2022. https://softpower30.com/country/south-korea/; “Brand Finance Global Soft Power Index 2020 - Brandirectory.” Accessed February 22, 2022. https://brandirectory.com/globalsoftpower/download/brand-finance-global-soft-power-index-2020.pdf.

13“U.S. Security Cooperation with Korea - United States Department of State,” U.S. Department of State (U.S. Department of State, January 14, 2021), https://www.state.gov/u-s-security-cooperationwith-korea/; Jeffrey Burroughs, 2010. “The Efficacy of Security Force Assistance in Countering Violent Extremist Organizations in Failed and Potentially Failing States.” Master of Military Arts and Science, Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, KS; Sawyer, Robert K., and Walter G. Hermes. Military Advisors in Korea: KMAG in Peace and War. Honolulu, HI: University Press of the Pacific, 2005.

14Ibid.; Combined Forces Command. USFK Combined Forces Command. (n.d.). Retrieved February 25, 2022, from https://www.usfk.mil/About/Combined-Forces-Command/; International contributions. United Nations Command &gt; Organization &gt; Contributors. (n.d.). https://www.unc.mil/Organization/Contributors/.

15Ibid.; Burroughs. “The Efficacy of Security Force Assistance”.

16“South Korea Military Spending/Defense Budget 1960-2022,” MacroTrends, accessed February 22, 2022, https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/KOR/south-korea/military-spending-defense-budget.

17South Korea GDP 1960-2022,” MacroTrends, accessed February 22, 2022, https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/KOR/south-korea/gdp-gross-domestic-product; Korean Culture and Information Service (KOCIS). (n.d.). Korea.net. The Korean Economy – the Miracle on the Hangang River : Korea.net : The official website of the Republic of Korea. Retrieved February 25, 2022, from https://www.korea.net/AboutKorea/Economy/The-Miracle-on-The-Hangang.

18Ibid.; “South Korea Economic Growth 1960-2022,” MacroTrends, accessed February 22, 2022, https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/KOR/south-korea/economic-growth-rate.

19Korean Culture and Information Service (KOCIS). (n.d.). Korea.net. The Korean Economy – the Miracle on the Hangang River : Korea.net : The official website of the Republic of Korea. Retrieved February 25, 2022, from https://www.korea.net/AboutKorea/Economy/The-Miracle-on-The-Hangang.

20June S. Beittel, “Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations” (Congressional Research Service, December 16, 2021), https://sgp.fas.org/crs/row/R43813.pdf; “U.S. Relations with Colombia - United States Department of State,” U.S. Department of State (U.S. Department of State, July 19, 2021), https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-colombia/#:~:text=Law%20Enforcement%20and%20Security20 Cooperation,the%20citizens%20of%20both%20countries; “Pablo Escobar,” Encyclopædia Britannica (Encyclopædia Britannica, inc.), accessed March 1, 2022, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pablo-Escobar.

21Steven Gutkin, “DEA Agent Attacks Colombia as ‘Narco-Democracy’,” The Washington Post (WP Company, October 1, 1994), https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1994/10/01/dea-agentattacks-colombia-as-narco-democracy/410189e6-0878-48b9-925a-127ce47148f1/.

22Beittel, “Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations”.

23“Products - Data Briefs - Number 81 - December 2011,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, November 6, 2015), https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db81.htm.

24June S. Beittel, “Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations”.

25Burroughs. “The Efficacy of Security Force Assistance”, 60-70.

26Burroughs. “The Efficacy of Security Force Assistance”, 58-60.

27“Brand Finance Global Soft Power Index 2021 - Brandirectory.” Accessed February 22, 2022. https://brandirectory.com/globalsoftpower/download/brand-finance-global-soft-power-index-2020.pdf.

28“The Indigenous Approach: 1st SFC(A) and SFAC on Apple Podcasts.” The Indigenous Approach, February 11, 2021. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1st-sfc-a-and-sfac/id1534621849?i=1000508753675; Felix Richter, “Infographic: The Globe’s Top Cocaine Producers,” Statista Infographics, September 7, 2016, https://www.statista.com/chart/5749/the-globes-top-cocaineproducers/.

29José María Luna, “Disney’s Encanto Isn’t Just about Representation - It’s an Act of Defiance,” Polygon (Polygon, December 27, 2021), https://www.polygon.com/22851932/encanto-disney-latinecolombia-in-movies.

30Marisa Dellatto, “‘We Don’t Talk about Bruno’ Hits No. 1-Only the 2nd Song from Disney Animated Film to Hit The Top Spot,” Forbes (Forbes Magazine, February 1, 2022), https://www.forbes.com/sites/marisadellatto/2022/01/31/we-dont-talk-about-bruno-hits-no-1-only-the-2nd-disney-song-to-hit-the-topspot/?sh=aa3aaa268bfc.

31“The Indigenous Approach: 1st SFC(A) and SFAC on Apple Podcasts.” The Indigenous Approach, February 11, 2021. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1st-sfc-a-and-sfac/id1534621849?i=1000508753675.

32Burroughs. “The Efficacy of Security Force Assistance”, 60-70.

33Burroughs. “The Efficacy of Security Force Assistance”, 58-60.

34Ibid.; Felix Richter, “Infographic: The Globe’s Top Cocaine Producers,” Statista Infographics, September 7, 2016, https://www.statista.com/chart/5749/the-globes-top-cocaine-producers/.

35“U.S. Relations with Colombia - United States Department of State,” U.S. Department of State (U.S. Department of State, July 19, 2021), https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-colombia/#:~:text=Law%20Enforcement%20and%20Security%20Cooperation,the%20citizens%20of%20both%20countries; Jeffrey Burroughs, 2010. “The Efficacy of Security Force Assistance in Countering Violent Extremist Organizations in Failed and Potentially Failing States.” Master of Military Arts and Science, Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, KS, 60-70.

36“Colombia GDP 1960-2022,” MacroTrends. Accessed February 22, 2022. https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/COL/colombia/gdp-gross-domestic-product; “Colombia GDP Growth Rate 1961-2022,” MacroTrends. Accessed February 22, 2022. https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/COL/colombia/gdpgrowth-rate.

37Burroughs. “The Efficacy of Security Force Assistance”, 10-21.

38“Brand Values, Profiles &amp; Global Rankings | Brandirectory.” Accessed February 22, 2022. https://brandirectory.com/globalsoftpower/download/brand-finance-global-soft-power-index-2021.pdf;

39J. J. Messner, “Fragile States Index 2014: Somalia Displaced as Most-Fragile State,” Fragile States Index 2014: Somalia Displaced as Most-Fragile State | The Fund for Peace, accessed February 22, 2022, https://web.archive.org/web/20150504035658/http://library.fundforpeace.org/fsi14-overview.

40Burroughs. “The Efficacy of Security Force Assistance”, 51-61; Knowles, Emily, and Jahara Matisek. “Western Security Force Assistance in Weak States.” The RU.S.I Journal 164, no. 3 (2019): 10–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/03071847.2019.1643258, 11-12.

41Ibid.

42Knowles, Emily, and Jahara Matisek. “Western Security Force Assistance in Weak States.” The RU.S.I Journal 164, no. 3 (2019): 10–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/03071847.2019.1643258. 11-12; “2022 Military Strength Ranking.” Global Firepower - World Military Strength. Accessed February 22, 2022. https://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-listing.php.

43“Somalia Military Size 1985-2022.” MacroTrends. Accessed February 22, 2022. https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/SOM/somalia/military-army-size; “Somalia Military Spending/Defense Budget 1961-2022.” MacroTrends. Accessed February 22, 2022. https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/SOM/somalia/military-spending-defense-budget; “U.S. Relations with Somalia - United States Department of State,” U.S. Department of State (U.S. Department of State, April 15, 2021), https://www.state.gov/u-srelations-with-somalia/.

44“Somalia GDP 1960-2022,” MacroTrends. Accessed February 22, 2022. https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/SOM/somalia/gdp-gross-domestic-product; “Somalia GDP Growth Rate 1961-2022,” MacroTrends. Accessed February 22, 2022. https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/SOM/somalia/gdpgrowth-rate.

45This paper uses the term democracy to include all democratic constitutional republics and similar forms of government.

46David Kilcullen. In Dragons and the Snakes: How the Rest Learned to Fight the West. S.l.: OXFORD UNIV PRESS U.S., 2022. 200-230. Kilcullen proposes in his book that the rules-based international order should adopt a Byzantine Grand Strategy. This paper proposed to call it a Go Byzantine Strategy because it follows Kilcullen’s proposal and it is a play on the game Go.

Human Rights

as an Army Special Operations Forces Tool to Compete with China in the Indo-Pacific

by Leeann Whittson

One contributing factor to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was the internal and external pressure on the Soviet Union to fulfill human rights commitments made in the 1975 Helsinki Accords.[1] Thirty years later in what some academics have labeled the “New Cold War,” the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has demonstrated patterns of human rights violations in both its domestic and foreign policies.[2] Although it is a signatory of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the PRC vocalizes its promotion of economic rights at the expense of civil and political rights.[3] Despite its human rights record, the PRC has gained influence across the world, leveraging strategies like One Belt, One Road (OBOR).[4] Governments and business leaders in third-party countries choose the PRC out of pragmatism, instead of choosing the U.S., which promotes and abides by international laws and norms.

The promotion of human rights has been a U.S. national security interest since the Declaration of Independence. Although democracy and human rights policies have always been a priority for the U.S., President Joseph Biden has given greater vocal support to and explicitly named human rights as one of the administration’s foreign policy priorities.[5] The U.S. Department of State has publicly condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for its actions in Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and Tibet.[6] The administration’s 2022 Indo-Pacific Strategy envisions “competing with the PRC to defend the interests and vision for the future that we share” with allies and partners over the next decade.[7] The Department of Defense (DoD) Indo-Pacific Strategy is “centered on the idea that free societies respect individual rights and liberties.”[8] Despite this stance, the DoD does not generally view human rights as within its purview, apart from abiding by the Law of Armed Conflict.[9] There is an opportunity to tie human rights to security by using U.S. Army Special Operations Forces (ARSOF), who are designed to “shape the operational environment” on behalf of national objectives.[10] The three ARSOF branches are well suited to contribute to U.S. human rights efforts: Civil Affairs engages with local populations with a focus on governance, Psychological Operations are experts in influence, and Special Forces are experts in the indigenous approach.[11]

Major Leeann Whittson is a Civil Affairs officer in the INDOPACOM aligned 97th Civil Affairs Battalion (Special Operations) (Airborne). She has previously served in the EUCOM-aligned 92nd Civil Affairs Battalion (Special Operations) (Airborne) and as a combat engineer officer in the 4th Engineer Battalion. She holds a bachelor’s in Civil Engineering from the U.S. Military Academy, a master’s in Foreign Service from Georgetown University, and a Master in Military Arts and Science from the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College.

After the atrocities of World War II, an international human rights movement prompted global action.[12] In 1948, the UN General Assembly adopted the UDHR, which detailed inherent and inalienable basic rights and fundamental freedoms that apply to all human beings.[13] International human rights law dictates government obligations to respect, protect, and fulfill fundamental human rights. Human rights fall under two broad categories: negative rights and positive rights. Negative rights encompass civil and political rights and are restraints on State power or freedom from the State (e.g., freedoms of assembly, speech, and religion).[14] Positive rights encompass economic, social, and cultural rights and enable one to change one’s socioeconomic condition or freedom through the State (e.g., food, housing, education, and healthcare).[15]

With the UDHR as the foundation, nine core international human rights instruments, or binding treaties, were established with corresponding UN Treaty Bodies, which serve as monitoring committees to ensure implementation.[16] The PRC and the U.S. have both signed seven of the nine treaties.[17] As human rights law is difficult to enforce, it matters less who is a signatory to these treaties and more about who abides by the critical components of these treaties.

The Genocide Convention was the first human rights treaty adopted after the UDHR, yet it focuses on prevention and lacks a UN Treaty Body. The crime of genocide falls under the criminal jurisdiction of the UN International Court of Justice for states or the independent International Criminal Court for individuals. Another inter-governmental body, the UN chartered Human Rights Council (HRC), is mandated to promote and protect human rights.[18] The council consists of forty-seven members elected by the UN General Assembly (UNGA). The U.S. had been a member since the HRC’s inception in 2006 until the Trump Administration withdrew the U.S. from the HRC in June 2018, but the UNGA re-elected the U.S. in October 2021.[19] The UNGA has also elected the PRC to the HRC every three years; however, in 2020, the PRC lost the votes of 41 member states from its 2016 bid.[20]

After the atrocities of World War II, an international human rights movement prompted global action.

Lastly, a significant aspect of the international human rights regime is the regional human rights treaties in Europe, Africa, and the Americas, but notably not in Asia. The exception to this is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) human rights declaration in 2009, which mandated the creation of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights to promote and protect human rights in Southeast Asia.[21]

Although the human rights community viewed this as primarily a step forward for human rights in Asia, the report’s language caused some controversy. Specifically, international human rights organizations and other critics point to the phrase that indicated that the treaty would consider rights in “regional and national contexts,” which created a loophole for human rights abuses.[22]

The U.S. can claim its asymmetric advantage over the PRC by highlighting how it exploits these loopholes and violates human rights treaties.

Cultural Perspectives on Human Rights

The UN member states globally accept the universality of human rights; however, many still believe in cultural relativism, where morality varies from culture to culture.[23] The Western concept of natural rights developed during the European Enlightenment from philosophers such as John Locke, which influenced the language and politics of the American and French Revolutions.[24] However, developing countries broadly value economic and social rights above civil and political rights; they view basic needs as a precursor to enjoying the luxury of civil liberties and democracy.[25] During the 1990s, this argument was labeled “Asian Values” and was used to push back against the universalism argument for human rights and justify authoritarian regimes in the Indo-Pacific.[26] In this light, the developing world views the West as not caring or insensitive to economic and social grievances, like poverty and hunger.[27] This perspective makes the Western conception of human rights less morally compelling. Although the 1997 Asian financial crisis largely discredited the “Asian Values” discourse, the sentiment has not disappeared from the region.[28]

The UN member states globally accept the universality of human rights; however, many still believe in cultural relativism, where morality varies from culture to culture.

The Chinese perspective blends Confucianism with communism in its human rights approach. These ideologies “recognize private interests but view them as belonging to the collective group.”[29] Exercising individual rights would “be self-defeating as it would harm the collective interest” and thus harm one’s own interests.[30] The UDHR emphasizes individual rights, yet Chinese cultural values contradict this stance.[31] Chinese rulers have had Confucian obligations to their citizens but never developed limitations on their power that reflected international human rights norms.[32]

Apart from ideological viewpoints, Clifford Bob’s Rights as Weapons outlines a Legal Realist perspective on human rights. This perspective views rights as reflecting the unique political balance in a specific time and place.[33] He outlines ways in which states, and those opposed to them, use rights claims as weapons to counter threats, mask motives, overturn laws, suppress subordinates, and break coalitions.[34] Chinese Marxists viewed human rights as a policy and ideological weapon of the West, as evidenced by the Chinese word for right as a combination of the words power and interest.[35]

After the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, the CCP used these realist tactics to co-opt human rights as a means to consolidate power.[36] The CCP used human rights language in legislation reform to create a “new social contract of growth in return for political acquiescence.” In other words, the CCP justified the denial of civil and political rights in exchange for economic and social rights. In the latest Freedom House annual report, the PRC scored second-worst for political rights and civil liberties.[37] The role of national law in the PRC is to maintain social harmony instead of arbitrating between individual claims.[38] According to Amnesty International, maintaining this harmony leads to the harsh repression of human rights defenders, journalists, political opposition, and ethnic minorities.[39] The CCP exerts social control through internet censorship, a combination of a lack of state transparency and a lack of freedom of individual expression.[40] The Chinese public generally believes this trade-off protects them from the social divisions and political chaos caused by political pluralism and liberal democracy.[41]

Narrative Competition

Grounded in Sun Tzu’s concept that the goal of warfare should be to win without fighting, the CCP wages three warfares in the information environment: psychological warfare, public opinion warfare, and legal warfare.[42] To wage this information warfare, xinxi zhanzheng, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has created its fifth branch of service, the Strategic Support Force, consisting of information-related capabilities.[43] The PLA’s psychological warfare consists of five broad tasks: (1) present its own side as just, (2) emphasize its advantages, (3) undermine the opposition’s will to resist, (4) encourage dissension in the enemy’s camp, and (5) implement psychological defenses.[44] The first two tasks are most relevant to this study, as the researcher does not assess U.S. or Chinese domestic affairs. A 2018 RAND study found that the CCP “excels” in nearly every information-related capability assessed, partially due to high prioritization and lack of restrictions for information operations.[45] One salient example is the spread of disinformation about the origins of COVID-19.[46] The CCP is largely unconstrained from conducting psychological warfare abroad, and it oversees “civil affairs-like projects” alongside Chinese investments to maximize influence with government leaders and domestic audiences.[47]

The CCP has built a global network of media outlets to “disseminate narratives that promote Chinese successes and defend the CCP.”[48] CCP-owned media outlets like the Chinese Global Television Network (CGTN) operate in six languages.[49] Due to State ownership, CGTN recently lost its license to operate in the United Kingdom and received further restrictions in the U.S. under the Foreign Missions Act.[50] To sidestep skepticism, the CCP has outsourced narrative dissemination by signing content-sharing memoranda of understanding with local news outlets to provide free content “in exchange for more positive or less critical coverage” of the PRC.[51]

Diplomacy

The CCP’s diplomacy is a continuation of the three warfares strategy. Historically, Chinese foreign policy embraced the Confucian concept of harmony and Zhou Enlai’s principles of peaceful coexistence.[52] This translated to risk-averse and non-confrontational diplomacy. Under President Xi Jinping’s leadership, however, the CCP has employed more forceful and assertive tactics known as Wolf Warrior diplomacy, which draws lessons of how to “exhaust a greater force” from the Tao-te Ching to conduct strategic competition with the U.S..[53] The CCP employs Taoist tactics by peacefully “neutralizing potential rivals... and encouraging political deference” toward Chinese positions to control its perceived sphere of influence in the Indo-Pacific – its foreign policy priority.[54]

The CCP is largely unconstrained from conducting psychological warfare abroad, and it oversees “civil affairs-like projects” alongside Chinese investments...

Wolf Warrior diplomats seek to actively influence public perception in favor of Chinese interests. For example, the CCP seeks to counter American human rights accusations by publishing a human rights report on one country: the United States. The 2020 report cites “incompetent pandemic containment,” racial discrimination, “American democracy disorder,” social unrest, social inequality, and disrespect for international rules.[55] Additionally, Chinese diplomats are helping to export antidemocratic tactics to autocratic leaders, spread disinformation, and promote its undemocratic agenda in international organizations, like the United Nations, in its efforts to alter the global norms and the rules-based international order.[56]

Although these policies persist, the Biden Administration is attempting to reinvigorate the topic of human rights. Human rights are a central feature of Biden’s foreign and national security policies and a primary pillar of the Summit for Democracy in December 2021.[57] Washington vocally criticizes the PRC for its human rights abuses. It counters PRC narratives about the U.S. human rights record with arguments like: “There can be no moral equivalence between rights-respecting countries that fall short in progress toward their ideals, and countries that regularly and massively trample on their citizens’ human rights.”[58] The Trump administration’s final statement from the State Department formally accused the PRC of crimes against humanity and genocide against the Uyghur population in Xinjiang Province.[59] The Biden administration maintained this stance, and for this reason, the U.S. and its allies imposed a diplomatic boycott on the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.[60] In March 2022, the Biden administration also accused Myanmar, a military government that the PRC supports and supplies with weapons, of crimes against humanity and genocide against the Rohingya population.[61]

Economic statecraft has increasingly become the instrument of choice as globalization has strengthened commercial ties...

Economic Statecraft

Economic statecraft has increasingly become the instrument of choice as globalization has strengthened commercial ties throughout the global economy. The PRC, specifically, prefers the use of economic statecraft because it “allows Beijing to shape the choices of others without resorting to military threats or the use of force.”[62] The CCP uses a combination of positive and negative inducements. It uses OBOR to create favorable political leverage through foreign direct investment and trade agreements. Conversely, they use negative means or coercion, such as threatening to restrict access to the large Chinese consumer market.[63]

ARSOF in INDOPACOM

DoD’s vision for the Indo-Pacific is nested with the whole-of-government approach toward a free and open Pacific. The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) strategy “recognizes the linkages between economics, governance, and security” and seeks to enhance governance, the rule of law, and resilient civil societies to strengthen the international system.[64] The primary way INDOPACOM envisions achieving this is through Indo-Pacific partnerships.[65]

Below the level of armed conflict, “ARSOF serves as the Army force of choice for dominating in competition, ... primarily through a partnered approach, to proactively advance U.S. interests, defeat adversary attempts to expand the competitive space, and deter an escalation of violence.”[66] Outlining “What We Do,” the April 2022 U.S. Special Operations Command Vision Statement explains that ARSOF units “shape the environment to reduce risk, prevent crises, and set conditions for success in competition and conflict... cultivate strong relationships with our global network... and illuminate irregular threats, foster partners’ resilience, and create dilemmas for our adversaries.”[67] Put simply, ARSOF set conditions, build relationships, and observe and mitigate threats. To support integrated deterrence, ARSOF offers outsized effects at lower political risk, enduring relationships with both local and interagency partners, presence and understanding, and information and influence campaigns.[68]

The ARSOF core activities relevant to this study include Civil Affairs Operations, Counterterrorism, Foreign Internal Defense, Military Information Support Operations, Preparation of the Environment, and Security Force Assistance.[69] The three ARSOF branches have regionally aligned and trained forces with language and cultural expertise to support the Theater Special Operations Command-Pacific (SOCPAC).

Cross-Functional Teams, named Pacific Augmentation Teams within SOCPAC, are composed of small elements from each of these three branches and are the ARSOF elements persistently engaged in several Indo-Pacific countries. Operational Detachments-Alpha from the 1st Special Forces Group continue to conduct training with partners like the Royal Thai Army and Thai Counter-Terrorism Operations Center.[70] Civil-Military Support Elements from the 97th Civil Affairs Battalion have recently provided medical supplies and care to those affected by Typhoon Odette in the Philippines and conducted medical first responder training to Bangladeshi partners.[71] Military Information Support Teams from the 5th Psychological Operations Battalion have reduced popular support for extremist groups, like Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines, and helped implement emergency communication systems in Sri Lanka.[72] The 1st Special Forces Command’s Information Warfare Center supports ARSOF operations by massing the effects of information-related capabilities in the information environment.[73]

The study analyzes Bangladesh and Thailand, bound by their internationally recognized borders. The two countries illustrate contrast – unique in several important ways – highlighting the range of possible ARSOF actions across two sub-regions. Bangladesh is a majority Muslim country in South Asia, where Chinese influence is arguably outpacing the U.S.. Thailand is a primarily Buddhist country in Asia and, by some measurements, is the most influential state within ASEAN. Both countries are within the PRC’s perceived sphere of influence and have potential grievances related to human rights. The cases are bound in time, beginning in 2012, when Xi Jinping became General Secretary of the CCP, until the present.

The researcher analyzed Bangladesh and Thailand through informational, socio-political, and economic lenses to explore Chinese influence. The collected evidence is from multiple types of open-source digital material. The research was then analyzed using a CFA framework to identify critical vulnerabilities of CCP operations in these countries. Lastly, these interpreted vulnerabilities are opportunities for ARSOF to use human rights as a strategic competition tool to exploit America’s asymmetric human rights advantage to decrease Chinese influence.

...vulnerabilities [of CCP operations] are opportunities for ARSOF to use human rights as a strategic competition tool...

Analysis

The findings from the case study analysis answer three secondary research questions: How can ARSOF and their partners (1) highlight Chinese human rights violations, (2) promote democracy and human rights over authoritarian practices, and (3) undercut Chinese exploitive economic practices in Bangladesh and Thailand?

The PRC prioritizes its near abroad through its efforts to expand its presence and influence. Figure 1 (page 90) attempts to illustrate the CCP’s interests and activity in the region. The PRC is reliant on the Strait of Malacca maritime choke point, which facilitates the transport of energy supplies to the PRC and a significant portion of global trade.[74] The CCP fears that U.S. and/or Japanese navies could exploit this supply chain vulnerability by blocking energy and other supplies moving through the Strait of Malacca to mainland China.[75] OBOR was launched, in part, to address this “Malacca Dilemma.”[76] Figure 1 depicts the two relevant land-based OBOR economic corridors most relevant to this study and illustrates the sea-based strategy, coined by security analysts as the “String of Pearls” strategy.[77] Strategic investments in ports along this string of pearls, as well as along these economic corridors, would enable the PRC to project influence, and potentially naval power.[78] CCP tactics to execute this vision present differently depending on the context, as illustrated in the case studies below.

Figure 1. The CCP’s Plan to Address the Malacca Dilemma

Source: Adapted by author from Chris Kiyaseh, “China’s Economic Imperialism,” Reformer, September 27, 2020, https://medium.com/reformermag/chinas-economic-imperialism-477ed22cdd9e.

In the era of strategic competition, smaller powers develop strategies to maximize their interests. Bangladesh holds a “Friendship to all and malice towards none” foreign policy doctrine, which seeks to primarily balance between the PRC and India and secondarily between the U.S., Russia, and other larger powers.[79] Caught more directly in the U.S.-PRC rivalry, Thailand has adopted a hedging strategy to “avoid becoming too close – and hence too dependent – on any single external power” and thus the U.S. and the PRC are “neither enemy nor friend.”[80] In fact, Thai public opinion has more confidence in Japan and the European Union as trustworthy partners and as their third-party choice to hedge against the U.S.-PRC rivalry.[81] Although some experts argue that both states have fallen into a “gravitational shift toward China” in response to inconsistent commitment from the U.S., both states have resisted PRC influence in important ways.[82]

Bangladesh

Bangladesh recently celebrated fifty years of independence.[83] Bangladesh was colonized as a part of India under British rule until 1947 and then became the Pakistani province, East Pakistan, until its war of independence against Pakistan in 1971.[84] India, which intervened to aid Bangladesh in this war, sees itself as Bangladesh’s “big brother.”[85] Since gaining independence, Bangladesh has sought to balance the influence of regional and global powers. The appetite for geopolitical competition within Bangladesh is mixed, with 30% equal approval ratings for the PRC and the U.S. and 41% approval of India in a 2020 citizen poll.[86] As alluded to above and illustrated in figure 3, the CCP seeks to increase relations with Bangladesh for geopolitical reasons: access to a deep-water port in the Indian Ocean and a ground connection to the region through the Bangladesh-India-Myanmar economic corridor, which could collectively bypass the Strait of Malacca choke point.[87]

Bangladesh has balanced its cooperation with the U.S. and the PRC in the military environment. The PRC is Bangladesh’s primary supplier of military equipment, including two submarines.[88] Notably, Bangladesh has not allowed Chinese military vessels access to its deep-water ports.[89] Although the U.S. also supplies equipment, it focuses on multilateral exercises for persistent engagement.[90] Bangladesh is one of the largest contributors to UN peacekeeping efforts, and training these troops has become a significant opportunity for DoD cooperation.[91] Additionally, Bangladesh ranks 7th on the Global Climate Risk Index.[92] Thus, disaster preparedness has also been a mainstay of defense, specifically ARSOF, cooperation efforts.[93]

Beyond the military environment, the rest of this case study section presents the analysis of the remaining operational variables associated with the DIME construct. Figure 2 (page 92) depicts the Critical Factor Analysis for Bangladesh. The research’s resulting themes, or critical requirements, are in light gray. The analysis of these themes, or critical vulnerabilities, are in dark gray. The opportunities for ARSOF action are in white at the bottom, which answer the secondary research questions 1A, 2A, and 3A.

Information Environment

Bangladeshis primarily consume information via the internet, while traditional television and newspaper outlets still communicate to older and lower-income populations.[94] Considered to be in a state of “digital emergence,” Bangladesh has seen vast increases in internet and social media penetration, with 73% of the population having access to the internet and two-thirds of the population accessing the internet on their phones.[95] The government of Bangladesh responded to this trend with the 2018 Digital Security Act, which surveils individual online activity, sometimes leading to arrests, and blocks access to both international and local news sources if deemed to “destroy communal harmony.”[96] The Digital Security Act was considered a potential theme because it appears to be moving Bangladesh closer to authoritarianism by using tactics similar to the Chinese. Despite concerning trends, this did not present a vulnerability for the CCP, nor did it provide a clear opportunity for ARSOF activity.

Bangladesh has balanced its cooperation with the U.S. and the PRC in the military environment.

In the public diplomacy realm, the CCP offered COVID-19 assistance and expertise, in exchange for developing sister-city arrangements to increase cultural linkages between the two countries.[97] In addition to strengthening foreign relations, the CCP uses programs like these to distract from its domestic authoritarianism, like the repression of freedom of speech it used in the initial cover-up of the virus. ARSOF has provided its own assistance to Indo-Pacific partners and should coordinate with the U.S. Embassy’s Public Affairs Office to support future public diplomacy opportunities that undermine CCP efforts at distraction from human rights issues.[98]

Figure 2. Critical Factor Analysis: Bangladesh

Source: Created by author using template from Joseph Krebs, “C501: Joint Planning Process Day 2,” (Lecture, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, KS, October 19, 2021).

Pro-Chinese Messaging

The CCP has employed a “charm offensive” in Bangladesh.[99] The CCP employs a robust public diplomacy campaign and highlights projects like the 8th Friendship Bridge, completed in December 2021.[100] In addition to promoting Chinese-Bangladesh cooperation, they also emphasize pro-PRC disinformation, such as the “Real Xinjiang” video production to dismiss Uyghur genocide allegations.[101] This charm-offensive is more prevalent than wolf-warrior tactics because Bangladesh-PRC ties are less strong and the strategic competition space is more crowded than others in the region. The exception to this approach was the CCP’s unprovoked warning to Bangladesh not to join the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) partnership.[102]

Mediation of the Rohingya Crisis

Over one million Rohingya refugees have fled Myanmar for Bangladesh to escape religious persecution.[103] These refugees are relocating to Bhasan Char, a previously uninhabited island at severe risk of climate disasters.[104] The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Myanmar recently commended Bangladesh on its “humane response” to housing the refugees.[105] The CCP has attempted to mediate between Bangladesh and Myanmar in an effort to project power in the region and minimize the Uyghur issue.[106] Since 2018, however, the CCP has failed to make progress and, in fact, openly supports the Myanmar military government responsible for the Rohingya crisis.[107] The initial hypothesis was that messaging could appeal to Bangladesh’s Muslim majority to express solidarity with the religiously persecuted Muslim Rohingya. Many Bangladeshis, however, view the crisis as a burden and claim “refugees are taking away jobs and engaging in illegal acts such as drug trafficking.”[108] Citizens living along the Myanmar border, where the refugee camps were established, have either been displaced or affected by a decrease in the provision of services and an increase in security threats, like trafficking and radicalization of refugees.[109] Therefore, Bangladeshis may be less sympathetic to Uyghur-Rohingya solidarity messaging but more open to a narrative that attributes partial blame to the PRC for their grievances.

The CCP has employed a “charm offensive” in Bangladesh.

ARSOF has an opportunity to partner with government and non-governmental organizations to improve the conditions surrounding the refugee camps and address Bangladeshi citizens’ concerns. Themes to stress in U.S. messaging should be Chinese silence and ineffectiveness as a mediator and how little the CCP cares about the security threats the alleged genocide and subsequent crisis has created. ARSOF and multilateral partners, like Japan and India, could partner with the Bangladeshi Army and Border Guard, already deployed to the region, to provide support to foreign internal defense to address security threats. These efforts would complement existing U.S. Embassy counterterrorism efforts, as well as U.S. humanitarian assistance provided to aid the government’s response to the Rohingya.

Bangladesh Summary

Despite a trend towards autocracy and increased human rights abuses, there are opportunities to partner with Bangladesh to push back on the PRC. The following recommendations suggest activities for ARSOF and their partners in Bangladesh:

1A. ARSOF and partners should expose CCP disinformation in Bangladeshi media while stressing Bangladeshi independence and sovereignty.

2A. ARSOF and partners should address Bangladeshi grievances surrounding the Rohingya refugee camps, to include providing multilateral FID support to address security concerns. ARSOF messaging should amplify the CCP’s ineffectiveness as a mediator and fueling of the crisis through political and military support to the Myanmar military government.

3A. ARSOF and partners should identify and amplify contradictions to the “open, clean, and green” rhetoric of OBOR activities. Additionally, ARSOF should help facilitate a working group centered around enhancing resiliency to PRC influence.

Although the U.S. has stronger military ties, the PRC has stronger economic and social relations with Thailand.

Thailand

Historically known as Siam, the country has been independent since 1238 and was the only Southeast Asian state to resist colonization by European powers during the 19th and 20th Centuries.[110] In 1954, the U.S. and Thailand became treaty allies under the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization.[111] During the Vietnam War, Thai soil served as a key logistics hub and staging base for regional operations.[112] Meanwhile, the CCP provided political and military support to the Vietnamese Communist Party and the Khmer Communist Party (Khmer Rouge) in Cambodia.[113] The 1978 overthrow of the genocidal Khmer Rouge and the subsequent Chinese retaliation “was a genuine threat to Thai national security and sovereignty,” thus, Thailand continued to receive U.S. foreign aid and military assistance.[114] After decades of security cooperation, the U.S. officially labeled Thailand a “major non-NATO ally” in 2003.[115]

Although the U.S. has stronger military ties, the PRC has stronger economic and social relations with Thailand. Perhaps the turning point in Sino-Thai relations was when the CCP “came to the financial rescue of Thailand with ‘no strings attached’,” after the 1997 Asian financial crisis.[116] Today Xi’s CCP, as discussed in the chapter introduction and illustrated in figure 3, seeks to increase relations with Thailand for geopolitical reasons: access to deep-water ports, a ground connection to the Strait of Malacca through the China-Indochina Peninsula economic corridor, and to cultivate Thailand as a key ally within ASEAN to advance CCP interests.[117] The CCP and Thai government have renewed discussions about a potential canal or land bridge project across the Kra Isthmus, the narrowest part of the peninsula, as a partial solution to the PRC’s Malacca dilemma.[118] Although the land bridge would be more feasible and cost-effective than the canal, either project would face significant tradeoffs, like isolating the low-level insurgency south of the project site.[119] The feasibility assessment for this project is scheduled for completion in 2023.[120]

Since becoming a constitutional monarchy in 1932, Thailand has had nineteen military coup d’état and coup attempts.[121] The most recent 2014 coup was a turning point in U.S.-PRC competition and relations with Thailand: the U.S. condemned the coup and paused many aspects of diplomacy and cooperation, and as a result, the PRC grew closer.[122] The 2019 election restarted and reinvigorated U.S. cooperation, namely through military partnership and exercises.[123] This shift in policy is crucial for the U.S. because experts assess that “given its size and location... [Thailand] is the most important “swing-state” in the U.S.-China strategic contest in the region”[124]

The rest of this section presents the analysis of the non-military instruments of national power in Thailand. Figure 3 (page 95) depicts the Critical Factor Analysis for Thailand. The research’s resulting themes, or critical requirements, are in light gray. The analysis of these themes, or critical vulnerabilities, are in dark gray. The opportunities for ARSOF action are in white, which answer the secondary research questions 1B, 2B, and 3B.

Figure 3. Critical Factor Analysis: Thailand

Source: Created by author using template from Joseph Krebs, “C501: Joint Planning Process Day 2,” (Lecture, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, KS, October 19, 2021).

Anti-U.S. Messaging

The CCP uses networks of social media bots to amplify its disinformation and anti-U.S. rhetoric. An example of a popular Chinese narrative is that the U.S. orchestrated the protest movements in Hong Kong and Bangkok.[125] Another example that went viral in Thailand is video footage of an Ecuadorian prison riot that the CCP framed as U.S. violence against Asians.[126] These narratives travel quickly within Thai social media networks as misinformation or without knowledge that they are false. This phenomenon is particularly true within Sino-Thai communities, discussed further in the Socio-Political section.

As China has developed and grown more powerful, Sino-Thai people feel a renewed connection with China...

Media Content Sharing

In 2018, the CCP signed a cooperation agreement to establish 11 media partnerships with Xinhua and CCTV, which feed news content to Thai media outlets, like the major Thai language TV channel TNN 24.[127] Thus, Chinese state media and the CCP narratives result in “vast amounts of Chinese state media content dominating portions of the news.”[128] This is an example of an activity where many within Thailand may be unaware of this vulnerability to PRC influence.

ARSOF and their partners have an opportunity to expose disinformation of CCP origin in Thai media. When combating anti-U.S. messaging, one theme to stress is Thai distaste for the U.S.-PRC rivalry and to frame CCP narratives as an intrusion on Thai independence. U.S. messaging should also promote local Thai content creation and foster a higher degree of press freedom, where possible.

Chinese Diaspora

One reason the previously discussed Chinese narratives resonate so easily within Thailand is because of the substantial Chinese diaspora, eight million (14% of the Thai population), the second-largest after Indonesia.[129] Sino-Thais are a significant target audience for the CCP, particularly with only 46,000 North American and 200,000 European expatriates living in Thailand.[130] As China has developed and grown more powerful, Sino-Thai people feel a renewed connection with China, especially since anti-Communist and anti-Chinese sentiments in Southeast Asia have subsided significantly in the past several decades.[131] Although many Chinese families in Thailand have lived there for generations, the CCP has recently made more deliberate efforts to leverage this revived sentiment.[132]

ARSOF messaging efforts should separate the CCP from the Chinese people and China writ large. Themes in this messaging should embrace their Sino-Thai heritage while appealing to their sense of pride in being Thai citizens. This messaging would drive a wedge between the CCP and its target audience before the CCP exchanges these positive attitudes for political capital.

Mekong Dams

The Thai population relies on the Mekong River for their food and livelihoods. Chinese upstream activities, particularly those related to its eleven upstream dams, have created significant concerns among the Thai.[133] As the second-largest concern about the PRC, this issue has become depoliticized and one of the few unifying issues among the Thai people.[134] Of the remaining five downstream states, in response to public discontent, the Thai government has been the only downstream country pushing back against PRC activity along the Mekong.[135] The PRC’s Mekong activity infringes on the Thai population’s Right to Adequate Living Conditions. In a 2020 concession to environmental activists, the Thai government reversed its decision that would have allowed for PRC dredging operations, intended for 500 ton PRC barge traffic, which would have displaced communities and degraded ecosystems along the Mekong.[136] The U.S. recently announced plans to expand its consulate in Chiang-Mai, close to the Mekong River on Thailand’s northern border, and has an ongoing messaging campaign for a “Free and Open Mekong,” which could add pressure and scrutiny on the sub-region.[137]

Like in Bangladesh, there is an opportunity for ARSOF and their partners to identify and amplify PRC contradictions in OBOR activity to its “open, clean, and green” rhetoric. Similarly, ARSOF and their partners could facilitate a working group centered around enhancing resilience to PRC economic dominance and influence. This initiative could begin by coalescing around egregious abuses along the Mekong River and grow to address other grievances related to PRC activity. ARSOF can also leverage Thai environmental concerns through public diplomacy efforts that provide humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HA/ DR), specifically to assist in the frequently flooded Chao Phraya flood plain in central Thailand.[138] This activity would draw a sharp contrast between PRC and U.S. concern for environmental rights.

Thailand Summary

Although Thailand’s hedging efforts fuel a desire to maintain an arms-length from the U.S., there are opportunities for ARSOF to collaborate with local partners to compete against the PRC. The following recommendations suggest activities for ARSOF and their partners in Thailand:

1B. ARSOF and partners should expose CCP disinformation in Thai media and promote local content creation while stressing Bangladeshi independence and sovereignty.

2B. ARSOF and partner messaging should separate the CCP from China and the Chinese people while appealing to their sense of pride in being Thai.

3B. ARSOF and partners should identify and amplify contradictions to “open, clean, and green” rhetoric and Mekong activities. ARSOF could assist with HA/DR support to contrast U.S. and PRC concerns for environmental rights. Additionally, ARSOF should help facilitate a working group centered around enhancing resiliency to PRC influence.

Although Thailand’s hedging efforts fuel a desire to maintain an arms-length from the U.S., there are opportunities for ARSOF...

One important caveat to these recommendations is that ARSOF units on the ground must confirm assumptions made in this study and consult with local partners and the U.S. Embassy to determine the best course of action. The analysis found opportunities common to both countries to expose CCP disinformation and emphasize host nation independence in the information environment, as well as opportunities to facilitate working groups aimed at strengthening resilience to detrimental Chinese business practices in the economic environment. In the socio-political environment, the analysis of Bangladesh presented an opportunity to assist in addressing grievances caused by the Rohingya crisis. The analysis of Thailand presented opportunities to drive a wedge between the CCP and the Sino-Thai diaspora and address grievances caused by PRC activity along the Mekong River.

These recommendations intend to empower both negative and positive rights: they promote the exercising of civil and political rights by highlighting CCP infringements on their freedoms. They also empower Indo-Pacific governments to provide social, economic, and cultural rights. The closing chapter continues the discussion of these opportunities by providing strategic context and conclusions, which help answer the primary research question through a cross-case analysis of common themes to recommend action for ARSOF operating in INDOPACOM.

...the U.S. should present the argument that better human rights protections produce better economic development results.

Conclusions

This section presents a broader U.S. strategic approach beyond the country-specific CFA framework, which can undergird ARSOF contributions at the operational and tactical levels.

Democracy versus the “China Model”

The State Department’s Integrated Country Strategy for Thailand expresses a “failure to consolidate democratic gains,” which could also describe large swathes of the Indo-Pacific region.[139] President Biden was “strong on democracy rhetorically out of the gate,” but the “strategic challenge [is to] get buy- in from allies and partners that are not all democracies.”[140]Although well-intentioned, accusations “of human rights violations in countries receiving foreign aid leads to a decline in public support for aid.”[141]

Instead of pressing a human rights agenda, the USG should compete with and undermine the “China Model,” which is appealing to autocratic governments. As discussed in the literature review, developing countries often view civil and political rights as a luxury that developed countries enjoy. The populations in developing countries often agree to social contracts with autocratic leaders to first achieve social and economic development. The U.S. Government could undermine the “China Model” of an economy with capitalistic tendencies under an authoritarian regime by separating the economic model from the political model.

Addressing the economic model, the U.S. should present the argument that better human rights protections produce better economic development results. Evidence from development research shows that by “investing in human rights, the economic growth rate of a country is likely to increase. The positive effects from freedom and participation rights on economic growth are channeled through institutional and economic factors such as government effectiveness, investments, and trade.”[142] Addressing the political model, the U.S. should argue that repression of civil society yields instability and/or regime change in the mid to long term. In a 2011 Chenoweth and Stephan study of nonviolent protest movements, the data show that 57% of campaigns succeeded in producing democratic outcomes, and 35% of those that failed had democratic outcomes five years afterward.[143] Instead of attempting to export democracy and human rights to other contexts, the “U.S. must convince and demonstrate that doing so is in their own interest.”[144] This effort is not likely to produce short-term gains but will yield success over time.

Leveraging Protest Movements

“Conflict is inevitable between and among populations and governments,” which begs the question: how can these conflicts be constructive?[145] Often, conflicts result from a disparity between the rights of a state and those of an individual, or in a non-Western framing, between the rights of the government and the collective public. In these circumstances, the government has three options: (1) repress protests, (2) ignore protests, or (3) make concessions. Unlike this study’s argument that strategic competition is not a zero-sum game, these interactions are zero-sum: autocratic power is either consolidated in option one or transferred to the people in option three.[146] While repression creates conditions for instability in the mid to long-term, as alluded to above, by expanding public discontent, concessions degrade autocracies by expanding space for civil society and increasing the government’s responsiveness to its population. Both case studies described ways the Bangladeshi and Thai governments made concessions to their populations’ desire to push back on CCP activities and OBOR projects in their respective countries.

The Right to Assist framework proposed by Peter Akerman and Hardy Merriman suggests outsiders can aid this progress with specific capacity-building measures that would raise the cost of and mitigate the effects of repression on civil society.[147] The U.S. should exercise caution because adversaries, like the PRC, are quick to accuse the U.S. of orchestrating protest movements in other countries. The U.S. should first ensure movements are rights-based and not regime change-oriented; then, any assistance should emphasize the benefit to these independent nations’ overall stability and prosperity, outside of strategic competition framing. By expressing grievances through peaceful assembly, citizens are expanding their civil and political human rights.

Shared Values versus Zero-Sum Game

As Indo-Pacific allies and partners are hedging between great powers, U.S. action should not force a zero-sum game but instead appeal to shared values and interests. The U.S. seeks to “advance a free and open Indo-Pacific” and “drive regional prosperity” as two principal components of its Indo-Pacific Strategy.[148] The U.S. can achieve both aims without opposing every PRC action. In fact, Chinese investment is contributing to Indo-Pacific prosperity and development. Instead, the U.S. should observe and highlight violations of shared values and actions detrimental to these goals.

As Indo-Pacific allies and partners are hedging between great powers, U.S. action should not force a zero-sum game but instead appeal to shared values and interests.

For example, the U.S. intends to empower regional partners and organizations like ASEAN.[149] The U.S. can emphasize the ASEAN principles of “openness, transparency, inclusivity, a rules-based framework, good governance, respect for sovereignty, nonintervention, complementarity with existing cooperation frameworks, equality, mutual respect, mutual trust, mutual benefit and respect for international law.”[150] Democracy and human rights messaging should be reframed in these terms, specifically as the Western framework emphasizes the individual rather than the benefit of these rights to the collective good. This reframing would also de-emphasize the belief that the U.S. is using third-party states purely to advance its interests in the U.S.-PRC ideological rivalry. The U.S. “goal should be to help them hedge.”[151]

Recommendations

The 2022 National Defense Strategy centers around the concept of integrated deterrence, particularly against the PRC, America’s number one pacing threat.[152] The recommendations in this study do not prescribe tasks to tactical ARSOF units. Instead, the recommendations provide a framework for ARSOF to leverage the vision for “What We Do” to contribute to the U.S.’ integrated deterrence of the PRC in INDOPACOM. To answer this study’s primary research question, ARSOF can contribute to U.S. efforts that exploit America’s asymmetric advantage in human rights to compete with the PRC in INDOPACOM in the following ways:

Build Relationships

1.Find a balance of partners who have mutual interests with the partner nation and seek to build resiliency to PRC influence. The need for solid partnerships undergirds all strategic documents on these issues.

2.Earn local buy-in for all ARSOF activities. ARSOF’s by-with-andthrough approach will mute the “New Cold War” mentality by increasing the sustainability and trustworthiness of the initiatives

3.Work closely with the U.S. Embassy and interagency partners to ensure unity of effort and added value.

Integrated Deterrence by Denial: Set Conditions

1.Facilitate working groups to enhance societal resilience to empower local partners and “psychologically harden populations against adversary influence operations.”[153] Strengthen cognitive awareness by identifying potential vulnerabilities of the partner nation.

2.Emphasize the partner nation’s independence from great powers. Separate China and the Chinese People from President Xi and the CCP.

3.“Cultivate opportunities for progress” by identifying opportunities to support civil society and democratic practices and undermine authoritative tactics.[154]

Integrated Deterrence by Punishment: Observe and Mitigate Threats

1.Address grievances that directly and indirectly result from CCP human rights violations, such as displaced and disaffected populations along the Myanmar border in Bangladesh and the Mekong River in Thailand.

2.Expose CCP disinformation. Leverage a neo-colonialism narrative that paints the CCP as encroaching on partner nation sovereignty despite the PRC’s non-interference policy.

3.Identify opportunities to subvert CCP influence by “Imposing costs and creating dilemmas... by shaping and amplifying grievances that divert resources, challenge adversaries’ cohesion, and undermine [its] strategic positions.”[155]

Implications

If ARSOF implemented the recommendations proposed in this study, Indo-Pacific partners would view the PRC and authoritarian tactics less favorably, thus influencing their alignment toward U.S. allies and partners. Although Bangladesh and Thailand are only two Indo-Pacific states with their own specific cultures, ARSOF Cross-Functional Teams can apply this framework to their mission countries. The study is not entirely generalizable; however, it could provide a baseline understanding of how one could approach the DoD gap in both addressing human rights concerns and integrated deterrence in the grey zone by leveraging ARSOF’s persistent engagements abroad.

Concluding Remarks

Indo-Pacific states are caught in the middle of the U.S.-PRC strategic competition. Many seek to hedge between two or more great powers. U.S. action to directly challenge the PRC or forcefully push the democracy and human rights agenda in these states would likely produce a negative backlash toward the U.S.. Indirectly competing with the PRC to promote democracy over authoritarianism would be more effective than direct competition but will carry more complex second and third-order effects. The benefit of ARSOF as a strategic competition tool is that they are trained to understand the operational environment and navigate complexities in “politically sensitive environments.”[156]

Another advantage that ARSOF provide is “sustained presence” and “sustained engagement.”[157] America is “seen as diplomatically disengaged and undependable.” because of its inconsistent engagement over the last several decades, which is now a “pronounced weakness” of the U.S. in competition.[158] ARSOF’s value proposition contributes meaningfully to the U.S. strategy in this regard: “to remain a steady, present, attentive, engaged, and predictable partner.”[159]

Strategic competition looks different in different places. ARSOF provides outsized influence through their bottom-up indigenous approach that complements the U.S. top-down strategy. The U.S. can “win” this competition by effectively arguing in favor of and encouraging others to adhere to the international rules-based order and corresponding liberal values and assisting allies and partners in becoming more resilient to PRC influence. IAJ

Notes

1Oliver Bange, “Helsinki 1975 and the Transformation of Europe,” (Webcast, Wilson Center, Washington, DC, September 23, 2008), https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/helsinki-1975-and-the-transformation-europe.

2Elliott Abrams, “The New Cold War,” Pressure Points (blog), Council on Foreign Relations, March 4, 2022, https://www.cfr.org/blog/new-cold-war-0. The term “New Cold War” is disputed in foreign policy circles, drawing distinctions between the bipolar world order and containment policy toward the Soviet Union in the original Cold War and today’s global interdependence in a unipolar world order. The researcher uses the term in this context to draw a more specific comparison of human rights in the Soviet Union and the PRC.

3Commission on Unalienable Rights, Report of the Commission on Unalienable Rights (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State, 2020), 35, https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Draft-Reportof-the-Commission-on-Unalienable-Rights.pdf.

4This paper uses the original term, One Belt, One Road (2013), rather than the revised term, Belt and Road Initiative (2016) because the former frames the strategy as one focused on power projection. In contrast, the latter is a more inclusive term that minimizes the PRC’s self-interests.

5U.S. President, Interim National Security Strategic Guidance (Washington, DC: The White House, March 2021), 20, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/NSC-1v2.pdf.

6Ibid., 21.

7The White House, Indo-Pacific Strategy of the United States (Washington, DC: The White House, February 2022), 5, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/U.S.-Indo-Pacific-Strategy.pdf.

8Phil Davidson, “The United States’ Interests in the Indo-Pacific,” (Speech by Commander, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Lowy Institute, Sydney, Australia, February 13, 2020), https://www.pacom.mil/Media/Speeches-Testimony/Article/2085461/the-united-states-interests-in-the-indo-pacific/.

9U.S. Southern Command, “Human Rights,” accessed April 16, 2022, https://www.southcom.mil/Commanders-Priorities/Strengthen-Partnerships/Human-Rights. The U.S. Southern Command is the only command with a dedicated Human Rights Office. This office, however, appears focused on training of and compliance with the Law of Armed Conflict.

10Headquarters, Department of the Army, Army Doctrine Publication 3-05, Army Special Operations (Washington, DC: Army Publishing Directorate, 2019), 1-15.

111st Special Forces Command-Airborne 1 SFC (A), A Vision for 2021 and Beyond (Fort Bragg, NC: 1 SFC (A), August 2021, 5, https://www.soc.mil/U.S.ASFC/Documents/1sfc-vision-2021-beyond.pdf.

12R. J. Vincent, Human Rights and International Relations (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 38.

13UN, “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”.

14James R. Mensch, “A Theory of Human Rights,” openDemocracy, February 2010, https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/theory-of-human-rights/.

15Ibid.

16United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, “UN Treaty Body Database,” United Nations Human Rights Treaty Bodies, accessed November 9, 2021, https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/SitePages/Home.aspx.

17Ibid. The U.S. and PRC have signed the: (1) Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women; (2) Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; (3) Convention Against Torture; (4) Convention on the Rights of Children; (5) Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; (6) International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights; (7) International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Neither country has signed the: (8) Convention on the Protection of all Migrant Workers; (9) Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.

18United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, “United Nations Human Rights Council,” United Nations Human Rights Council, accessed November 9, 2021, https://www.ohchr.org/en/hrbodies/hrc/pages/home.aspx.

19Secretary of State, “Election of the United States to the UN Human Rights Council,” (Press Release, U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC, October 14, 2021), https://www.state.gov/election-of-theunited-states-to-the-un-human-rights-council-hrc/.

20Mary Hui, “China’s Election to the UN Human Rights Council Revealed its Shaky Global Status,” Quartz, October 14, 2020, https://qz.com/1917295/china-elected-to-un-rights-council-but-with-lowestsupport-ever/.

21Irwin Loy, “ASEAN Approves Controversial Human Rights Declaration,” Voice of Asia, November 18, 2012, https://www.voanews.com/a/asean-summit-opens-in-phnom-penh/1548305.html.

22Ibid.

23Vincent, Human Rights and International Relations, 37.

24Donald P. Kommers and Gil Loescher, eds., Human Rights and American Foreign Policy (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979), 36.

25Kommers and Loescher, Human Rights and American Foreign Policy, 81-83.

26Mark R. Thompson, “Pacific Asia after ‘Asian Values’: Authoritarianism, Democracy, and ‘Good Governance’,” Third World Quarterly 25, no. 6 (2004): 1085-1086.

27Kommers and Loescher, Human Rights and American Foreign Policy, 81-83.

28Thompson, “Pacific Asia after ‘Asian Values’,” 1079.

29R. Randle Edwards, Louis Henkin, and Andrew J. Nathan, Human Rights in Contemporary China (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 138.

30Ibid. 144.

31Pollis and Schwab, Human Rights, 153.

32Cheng et al., Assessing Beijing’s Power, 5.

33Clifford Bob, Rights as Weapons: Instruments of Conflict, Tools of Power (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019), 11.

34Ibid., 13-15.

35Vincent, Human Rights and International Relations, 41.

36Ronald C. Keith, China from the Inside Out: Fitting the People’s Republic into the World (New York: Pluto Press, 2009), 68-69.

37Sarah Repucci and Amy Slipowitz, Freedom in the World 2022: The Global Expansion of Authoritarian Rule (Washington, DC: Freedom House, 2022), 27, https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2022/global-expansion-authoritarian-rule.

38Vincent, Human Rights in International Relations, 41.

39Amnesty International (AI), Amnesty International Report 2020/21: The State of the World’s Human Rights (London: AI, 2021), 119, https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/pol10/3202/2021/en.

40Ibid.

41Berthold Kuhn, China’s Rise and Chinese Values: China’s Growing Influence and Its Critics (Berlin: Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute, 2019), 5, https://doc-research.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Chinese-values_Download-file.pdf.

42Dean Cheng, “Winning Without Fighting: The Chinese Psychological Warfare Challenge,” (Backgrounder No. 2821, The Heritage Foundation, Washington, DC, 2013), https://www.heritage.org/global-politics/report/winning-without-fighting-the-chinese-psychological-warfare-challenge.

43Christopher Paul, Colin P. Clarke, Michael Schwille, Jakub P. Hlavka, Michael A. Brown, Steven Davenport, Isaac R. Porche III, and Joel Harding, Lessons from Others for Future U.S. Army Operations in and through the Information Environment (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2018), 13, https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1925z1.html.

44Cheng, “Winning Without Fighting,” 4.

45Paul, Lessons from Others, xi.

46Orville Schell and Susan L. Shirk, eds., China’s New Direction: Challenges and Opportunities for U.S. Policy (San Diego, CA: Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations and UC San Diego, 2021), 4, https://asiasociety.org/sites/default/files/inline-files/2021-china-new-direction-report.pdf.

47Ibid., 13.

48Schell and Shirk, China’s New Direction, 22.

49Safeguard Defenders, “Ownership and Control of Chinese Media,” News (blog), June 14, 2021, https://safeguarddefenders.com/en/blog/ownership-and-control-chinese-media.

50Ibid.

51Sarah Cook, China’s Global Media Footprint: Democratic Responses to Expanding Authoritarian Influence (Washington, DC, National Endowment for Democracy: February 2021), 3, https://www.ned.org/sharp-power-and-democratic-resilience-series-chinas-global-media-footprint/.

52Keith, China from the Inside Out, 130.

53Zhanna Malekos Smith, “New Tail for China’s ‘Wolf Warrior’ Diplomats,” Center for Strategic & International Studies, October 13, 2021, https://www.csis.org/analysis/new-tail-chinas-wolf-warrior-diplomats. The Tao-te Ching is a sixth century B.C. Chinese spiritual text outlines the philosophical concept of Tao (or The Way), which influenced the development of Confucianism and Buddhism.

54Schell and Shirk, China’s New Direction, 21.

55Huaxia, ed., “The Report on Human Rights Violations in the United States in 2020,” XinhuaNet, March 24, 2021, 2-18, http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2021-03/24/c_139832301.htm.

56Repucci and Slipowitiz, Freedom in the World 2022, 5.

57U.S. President, Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, 20.

58Commission on Unalienable Rights, Report of the Commission on Unalienable Rights, 7.

59Secretary of State, “Determination of the Secretary of State on Atrocities in Xinjiang,” (Press Statement, U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC, January 19, 2021), https://2017-2021.state.gov/determination-of-the-secretary-of-state-on-atrocities-in-xinjiang/.

60U.S. Department of State (DOS) Spokesperson, “Department Press Briefing–December 6, 2021,” (DOS, Washington, DC, December 6, 2021), https://www.state.gov/briefings/department-press-briefingdecember-6-2021/.

61Secretary of State, “Secretary Antony J. Blinken on the Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity in Burma” (Remarks, Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, March 21, 2022), https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-at-the-united-states-holocaust-memorial-museum/.

62Schell and Shrink, China’s New Direction, 22.

63Ibid.

64DOD, DOD Indo-Pacific Strategy Report, 4.

65Ibid., 17.

66U.S. Army Special Operations Command (U.S.ASOC), Army Special Operations Strategy (Fort Bragg, NC: U.S.ASOC), 2019), 3, https://www.soc.mil/AssortedPages/ARSOF_Strategy.pdf.

67U.S. Special Operations Command (U.S.SOCOM), Special Operations Forces Vision & Strategy (MacDill Air Force Base, FL: U.S.SOCOM, April 2022), 1, https://www.socom.mil/sof-vision-andstrategy.

68Crombe, Ferenzi, and Jones, “Integrating Deterrence across the Gray.“

69HQDA, ADP 3-05, 2-1. The core activities not listed include Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction, Counterinsurgency, Direct Action, Foreign Humanitarian Assistance, Special Reconnaissance, and Unconventional Warfare.

701st Special Forces Group-Airborne, “Green Berets practiced breaching...” Facebook, April 4, 2002, https://www.facebook.com/1stSFGroup; 1st Special Forces Group-Airborne, “Our Green Berets have been training alongside our Royal Thai Army partners...” Facebook, March 24, 2022, https://www.facebook.com/1stSFGroup.

71Special Operations Command Pacific, “Civil Affairs worked with Philippine partner organizations...” Facebook, March 24, 2022, https://www.facebook.com/socpac.socom; Special Operations Command Pacific, “Civil Affairs teams conducted a medical first responder seminar...” Facebook, March 29, 2022, https://www.facebook.com/socpac.socom.

72Sharon Engelmeier, “Narrative Fusion Cell,” Special Warfare Magazine 30, no. 4 (December 2017): 72; Janice Burton, “Crisis Response in Sri Lanka,” Special Warfare Magazine 30, no. 4 (December 2017): 55.

731 SFC (A), Vision for 2021 and Beyond, 8.

74Jacob J. Lew, Gary Roughead, Jennifer Hillman, and David Sacks, China’s Belt and Road: Implications for the United States, Independent Task Force Report No. 79 (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 2021), 62.

75Ibid.

76Ibid.

77Chen Shaofeng, “China’s Self-Extrication from the ‘Malacca Dilemma’ and Implications,” International Journal of China Studies 1 (February 1, 2010): 20.

78Ibid., 2.

79A.K. Abdul Momen, “A Conversation with Bangladeshi Foreign Minister H.E. A.K. Abdul Momen,” (video of interview, United States Institute of Peace, Washington, DC, April 5, 2022), 29:25, https://www.usip.org/events/conversation-bangladeshi-foreign-minister-he-ak-abdul-momen.

80David L. Shambaugh, Where Great Powers Meet: America and China in Southeast Asia (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), 10, 140.

81Sharon Seah, Hoang Thi Ha, Melinda Martinus, and Pham Thi Phuong Thao, The State of Southeast Asia: 2021 (Singapore: ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, 2021), 34, 42-50, https://www.iseas.edu.sg/wpcontent/uploads/2021/01/The-State-of-SEA-2021-v2.pdf.

82Shambaugh, Where Great Powers Meet, 15.

83Momen, “A Conversation with Bangladeshi Foreign Minister,” 6:52.

84Bruce Vaughn and Will Mackay, Bangladesh and Bangladesh-U.S. Relations, Congressional Research Service Report R44094 (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, updated October 17, 2017), 10, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R44094.

85Samantha Custer, Tanya Sethi, Jonathan A. Solis, Joyce Jiahui Lin, Siddhartha Ghose, Anubhav Gupta, Rodney Knight, and Austin Baehr, Silk Road Diplomacy: Deconstructing Beijing’s Toolkit to Influence South and Central Asia (Williamsburg, VA: AidData, College of William & Mary, December 10, 2019), 33.

86Samantha Custer, Justin Schon, Ana Horigoshi, Divya Mathew, Bryan Burgess, Vera Choo, Amber Hutchison, Austin Baehr, and Kelsey Marshall, Corridors of Power: How Beijing Uses Economic, Social, and Network Ties to Exert Influence along the Silk Road (Williamsburg, VA: AidData, College of William & Mary, December 2021), 60, 64.

87Anu Anwar and Michael Kugelman, “America Should Bet on Bangladesh,” Foreign Policy, December 1, 2021, https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/12/01/us-bangladesh-relations-dhaka-india-china-bri/.

88Bruce Vaughn, “Bangladesh,” (Congressional Research Service Report In Focus IF10214, Washington, DC, updated February 2, 2021), 2, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10214.

89Ibid.

90DOD, DOD Indo-Pacific Strategy Report, 21, 35.

91DOD, DOD Indo-Pacific Strategy Report, 51.

92David Eckstein, Vera Künzel, and Laura Schäfer, “Global Climate Risk Index 2021: Who Suffers Most Extreme Weather Events? Weather-Related Loss Events in 2019 and 2000-2019,” (Briefing Paper, GermanWatch e.V., Berlin, January 2021), 13.

93Aria A. Cohen, “Maritime Foreign Internal Defense in Bangladesh,” Special Warfare Magazine 30, no. 4 (December 2017): 91-92.

94D’reach Rabeth Khan, “A Peek into the Digital Emergence of Bangladesh,” WARC, October 9, 2021, https://www.warc.com/newsandopinion/opinion/a-peek-into-the-digital-emergence-of-bangladesh/engb/4397.

95Rabeth Khan, “A Peek into the Digital Emergence of Bangladesh”.

96“Bangladesh: Online Surveillance, Control,” Human Rights Watch, January 8, 2020, https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/01/08/bangladesh-online-surveillance-control.

97Joyeeta Bhattacharjee, “Chinese Proposal to Bangladesh for Sister-city Alliance,” Observer Research Foundation, June 12, 2020, https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/chinese-proposal-bangladesh-sister-city-alliance-67725/.

98IDP FORUM Staff, “U.S. Special Operations Command Pacific Partners with Regional Allies to Combat COVID-19,” Indo-Pacific Defense Forum, July 23, 2021, https://ipdefenseforum.com/2021/07/u-sspecial-operations-command-pacific-partners-with-regional-allies-to-combat-covid-19/.

99Asif Muztaba Hassan, “China’s Charm Offensive in Bangladesh,” East Asia Forum, October 21, 2021, https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2021/10/21/chinas-charm-offensive-in-bangladesh/.

100“The Main Bridge of the 8th Bangladesh-China Friendship Bridge Is Successfully Closed,” Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, December 29, 2021, http://bd.china-embassy.org/eng/zmjw/202112/t20211229_10477009.htm.

101“Follow the Lens of Sunny to Explore the Real Xinjiang-- Xinjiang in the Eyes of a Bangladeshi Student,” Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, December 9, 2021, http://bd.china-embassy.org/eng/zmjw/202112/t20211209_10464823.htm.

102Hassan, “China’s Charm Offensive in Bangladesh.”

103Vaughn, “Bangladesh,” 1.

104Ibid.

105Tom Andrews, “Mission to Bangladesh 13-19 December 2021: End of Mission Statement,” (Statement by UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Dhaka, December 19, 2021), https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2022/03/mission-bangladesh-13-19-december-2021?LangID=E&NewsID=28001.

106Poppy McPherson, Ruma Paul, and Shoon Naing, “China Struggles in New Diplomatic Role, Trying to Return Rohingya to Myanmar,” Reuters, January 20, 2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-china-insight/china-struggles-in-new-diplomatic-role-trying-to-return-rohingya-tomyanmar-idUSKBN1ZJ0SY.

107Ibid.

108Jinkyung Beck and Ha Eun Yoon, “State of Legal and Social Support for Refugees and Displaced Foreign Nationals in Asia: Comparison of Five Asian Countries,” (ADRN Issue Briefing, Asia Democracy Research Network, Seoul, Republic of Korea, December 29, 2021), http://www.eai.or.kr/new/en/pub/view. asp?intSeq=20995&board=eng_issuebriefing&keyword_option=&keyword=&more=.

109Kudrat-E-Khuda Babu, “The Impacts and Challenges to Host Country Bangladesh Due to Sheltering the Rohingya Refugees,” ed. Michael William Scott, Cogent Social Sciences 6, no. 1 (January 1, 2020): 1770943, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23311886.2020.1770943.

110Shambaugh, Where Great Powers Meet, 31.

111DOD, DOD Indo-Pacific Strategy Report, 29.

112Emma Chanlett-Avery, Ben Dolven, and Wil Mackey, Thailand: Background and U.S. Relations, Congressional Research Service Report RL32593 (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, updated July 31, 2015), 6, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL32593.

113Shambaugh, Where Great Powers Meet, 127.

114Ibid., 50, 186.

115DOD, DOD Indo-Pacific Strategy Report, 29.

116Shambaugh, Where Great Powers Meet, 186.

117Ibid., 12, 169,181.

118Toru Takahashi, “Thai ‘Land Bridge’ Project Caught in Sino-U.S. Tug of War,” Nikkei Asia, February 20, 2022, https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Comment/Thai-land-bridge-project-caught-in-Sino-U.S.-tug-ofwar.

119Chanlett-Avery, Dolyen, and Mackey, Thailand, 1.

120Takahashi, “Thai ‘Land Bridge’ Project Caught in Sino-U.S. Tug of War”.

121Kirt Smith, “Thailand Set to Hold Long-Awaited Election,” (Congressional Research Service Insight IN11071, Washington, DC, March 12, 2019), 1, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN11071.

122Benjamin Zawacki, Thailand: Shifting Ground between the U.S. and a Rising China, Asian Arguments (London: Zed, 2017), 299-303.

123Shambaugh, Where Great Powers Meet, 188, 191.

124Ibid., 185.

125Joel Sawat Selway, “Thailand in 2021,” Asian Survey 62, no. 1 (February 1, 2022): 112, https://doi.org/10.1525/as.2022.62.1.10.

126Tang, “China’s Information Warfare and Media Influence”.

127Samantha Custer, Mihir Prakash, Jonathan Solis, Rodney Knight, and Joyce Jiahui Lin, Influencing the Narrative: How the Chinese Government Mobilizes Students and Media to Burnish Its Image (Williamsburg, VA: AidData, College of William & Mary, December 2019), 14-15.

128Cook, China’s Global Media Footprint, 7.

129Shambaugh, Where Great Powers Meet, 189.

130Patama Vapattanawong, Foreigners in Thailand (Thailand: Institute for Population and Social Research, Mahidol University, June 30, 2017), http://www.ms.ipsr.mahidol.ac.th/ConferenceXI/Download/Book/447-IPSR-Conference-A12-fulltext.pdf.

131Custer et al., Influencing the Narrative, 22-23.

132Tang, “China’s Information Warfare and Media Influence”.

133Sanbeer Singh Ranhotra, “China Has Started a Full-Blown Water War with Thailand by Selectively Stopping and Releasing Mekong Water at Will,” TFIGlobal, April 18, 2021, https://tfiglobalnews.com/2021/04/18/china-has-started-a-full-blown-water-war-with-thailand-by-selectively-stopping-andreleasing-mekong-water-at-will/.

134Seah et al., The State of Southeast Asia, 37.

135Akshay Narang, “Thailand Is the Last Stand against China’s Mekong Push,” TFIGlobal, February 2, 2022, https://tfiglobalnews.com/2022/02/02/thailand-is-the-last-stand-against-chinas-mekong-push/.

136“Thailand Ditches China-Led Plan to Dredge Mekong River,” The Straits Times, February 5, 2020, https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/thailand-ditches-china-led-plan-to-dredge-mekong-river.

137Arkshay Narang, “Trump’s Deal with Thailand Has Just Come to the Fore and China Is Rattled,” TFIGlobal, September 4, 2021, https://tfiglobalnews.com/2021/09/04/trumps-deal-with-thailand-has-justcome-to-the-fore-and-china-is-rattled/.

138Ron Gluckman, “Bangkok: The Sinking City Faces Severe Climate Challenges,” PreventionWeb, United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, June 10, 2019, https://www.preventionweb.net/news/bangkok-sinking-city-faces-severe-climate-challenges.

139U.S. Department of State (DOS), Integrated Country Strategy: Thailand (Bangkok, Thailand: DOS, 2020), 6.

140China in the World, episode 171, “Live Recording Replay: U.S.-China Relations One Year into the Biden Presidency,” directed by Paul Haenle, featuring Sheena Chestnut Greitens, aired March 28, 2022, 37:55.

141Niheer Dasandi, Jonathan Fisher, David Hudson, and Jennifer vanHeerde-Hudson, “Human Rights Violations, Political Conditionality and Public Attitudes to Foreign Aid: Evidence from Survey Experiments,” Political Studies (January 18, 2021): 1-12, http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0032321720980895.

142Hans-Otto Sano, Sigrid Alexandra Koob, and Stinne Skriver Jorgensen, Human Rights and Economic Growth (Copenhagen: The Danish Institute for Human Rights, 2017), https://www.humanrights.dk/publications/human-rights-economic-growth.

143Peter Ackerman and Hardy Merriman, Preventing Mass Atrocities: From a Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) to a Right to Assist (RtoA) Campaigns of Civil Resistance, ICNC Special Report Series, vol. 4 (Washington, DC: International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, May 2019), 7, https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Right-to-Assist.pdf.

144Zawacki, Thailand, 13.

145Ackerman and Merriman, Preventing Mass Atrocities, 34.

146Joseph Bedingfield, personal communication with author, Fort Leavenworth, KS, April 4, 2022.

147Ackerman and Merriman, Preventing Mass Atrocities, 13-15.

148The White House, Indo-Pacific Strategy of the United States, 7.

149Ibid., 9.

150Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), “ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific,” (Speech delivered in Bangkok, Thailand, 2019), 2, https://asean.org/speechandstatement/asean-outlook-on-the-indopacific/.

151Shambaugh, Where Great Powers Meet, 102.

152DOD, “Fact Sheet: 2022 National Defense Strategy,” 1.

153Crombe, Ferenzi, and Jones, “Integrating Deterrence across the Gray”.

154Repucci and Slipowitz, Freedom in the World 2022, 30.

155Crombe, Ferenzi, and Jones, “Integrating Deterrence across the Gray”.

156CJCS, JP 3-05, GL-11.

157HQDA, ADP 3-05, 1-9, 1-11.

158Shambaugh, Where Great Powers Meet, 101, 246.

159Ibid., 102.

Mutually Assured Survival:

Deterring Inadvertent Conflict Escalation Through Strategic Restraint Signaling

by Travis Zahnow

The ability to understand escalation dynamics around foreign military interventions vitally interests any major power that believes it will intervene in a foreign war in the future. Major powers, which often take part in risky military interventions on the periphery of their empire, want to avoid escalating war with other major powers. This paper explores the dynamic of restraint signaling as a means of avoiding conflict escalation while demonstrating four restraint signals present in the case studies that potentially helped reduce the risk of an inadvertent escalation. They are: restraining weapons shipments and other military aid, restraining the timing of arms shipments, restraining what type of military forces, advisor versus combat soldier that were deployed, and placing geographic and/or targeting restraints on forces. A theory that avoids escalation is useful as a tool for policymakers and strategic planners to understand the impact that foreign military interventions have on the possibility of an inadvertent conflict escalation. It also allows those charged with planning an intervention to develop a strategic plan that uses the appropriate level of support of clients without escalating the conflict.

Background

More than a dozen conflicts erupted globally during the two decades following the rise of decolonization and nationalism across the globe in the mid-twentieth century. Most of these conflicts took place in what was, at the time, referred to as the Third World. Places like Angola, the Middle East, Central America, and Afghanistan become the hotbeds of the final phase of the Cold War—interventions and conflicts more about East-West ideological dispute than anything else. As contemporary strategic competition heats up so does the likelihood of future foreign military interventions. How can the U.S. avoid escalation during interventions? The Cold War offers a snapshot of how major power avoided conflict escalation during the foreign military interventions of the 1970s.

Major Travis Zahnow is a U.S. Army Strategist and previously served as an Art of War Scholar at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. He holds degrees from both the U.S. Military Academy and the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

Within these Cold War conflicts major powers saw opportunities to support individual sides while trying to preserve global peace. In the grand scheme of the US-Soviet competition, the Cold War was remarkable for the stability that was a four-decade-long struggle of ideological and geopolitical differences. Viewed from twenty-thousand feet, the Cold War was very much the “long peace” it appeared to be.[1]

In the Third World, it was less the “long peace” and was more like the “long war.” Despite the alleged existence of a stable period between major powers, the Cold War in the Third World was far from peaceful. Nuclear parity, the threat of mutually assured destruction, and the belief that war by proxy was the “cheapest insurance in the world” drove belligerents to achieving geopolitical aims through the indirect use of foreign forces.[2]

While there was no true major power conflict, there were several asymmetric low-level conflicts in which the major powers, the United States and the Soviet Union, interfered. In the decades following the 1940s, nearly three dozen African and Asian nations found themselves throwing off the yoke of colonialism and embracing their own freedoms. Washington D.C. and Moscow prepared to contest for power in almost all of them.[3] During the Cold War, foreign military intervention and war by proxy were key strategies of the indirect conflict between the major powers, all done to change the balance of power in the only place they could—outside of Europe. Within Europe, the competition between the U.S. and the Soviet Union had become almost predictable: rhetoric exchanged, but little physical space moved. But, within the developing nations of the Third World, major power expansion among post-colonial states was anything but predictable. The decades of the 1970s represented the peak of major power efforts to provide military support to Third World regimes at war.[4]

The Literature

Earlier escalation work does not adequately address the interaction of major powers that choose to intervene in a conflict. Instead, much of the previous literature has focused on escalation as it relates to nuclear war. As Austin Carson points out in Secret Wars: Covert Conflict in International Politics, it is appealing to control escalation in conflict.[5] Prior work has helped to explain how control happens at a nuclear weapon level. How major powers control escalation during more conventional wars is not. Even less explored is escalation control during indirect foreign military interventions. While limited war theory literature offers important lessons, it does not adequately trace the importance of controlling escalation at a more conventional level.

During the Cold War, foreign military intervention and war by proxy were key strategies of the indirect conflict between the major powers...

Much of what is known about contemporary limited war theory evolved from a desire to understand how escalation in war happens, as well as a need to understand ways of controlling escalation to ensure that war did not evolve to total war. Limited wars are those which are “vital but not existential” and do not require the utilization of all resources in pursuit of victory.[6]

Limited war theorists like Bernard Brodie, Thomas Schelling, Robert Osgood, Henry Kissinger, and others all had to contend with a new reality: that the political aims they had previously fought wars for were not worth the cost of total destruction due to nuclear weapons. Nuclear parity with the Soviets meant that total war would be catastrophic. Cold War thinking on escalation and mutually assured destruction centered on the eventuality that a conventional war was bound to go nuclear. These new theories on limited war were counter to the earlier focus on destroying the military will power of an adversary. This was no longer tenable once your enemy could use a nuclear weapon to “destroy the destroyer.”[7]

A major contribution to the literature on limited war was the role tacit bargaining played in communications between sides. A limited war requires establishing limits.[8] To achieve limits in war, belligerents have to bargain (formal, informal, tacit) to prevent escalation, as noted by Henry Kissinger in Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy.[9] Schelling identified a similar phenomenon, calling them focal points—a solution to a coordination problem that somehow stands out as the natural answer even if the participants don’t arrange it beforehand—that could coordinate two people’s actions.[10] Scholars have noted that the Korean War offers a few examples of focal points that limited the conflict. Natural terrain-based boundaries, as well as man-made separations, were used to separate combatants throughout the war. The Korean War also saw a delineation between weapons that could achieve strategic effects (in this case nuclear weapons) and conventional weapons. The Korean War offered limited war theorists an understanding of the role that tacit bargaining and mutual recognition could play in limiting war.

...the acute fear that an escalation would spiral into a larger conflict helps leaders prioritize actions that signal restraint.

The research uses the concept of competitive foreign military intervention. As presented earlier, the author defines competitive foreign military intervention as the provision of combat and non-combat related aid by major powers to a state or non-state participant actively engaged in an intrastate or interstate conflict, hoping to influence the outcome of the conflict.[11] Interventions are competitive because interveners share “competing, rather than shared interests in the outcome of [the war].”[12] Competitive foreign military interventions, therefore, involve two states competing to support opposite sides, not two states competing to be the sole supporter of the same side of an inter or intrastate war. To fall within the definitions previously presented, combatants need to be opposed to each other and receive external support from two opposed major powers.

To capture interventions correctly, one must adopt a broad definition of external aid. Noel Anderson correctly notes that narrowing the scope of aid to only the deployment of combat forces misses many third-party interventions.[13] Anderson’s definition involves combat or advisory forces, as well as support with weapons and ammunition, non-lethal aid, or logistical support. Throughout this research, the broader approach to the treatment of external aid is used to assess interventions that involve more than just combat forces.

The work anchored the theory in the nature of escalation within limited wars. It is also grounded in the fear that the decisions major powers make are bound by their individual fears over the vulnerability they feel during an intervention.[14] Restraint signaling helps to explain how major powers could control conflict escalation. As introduced previously, nuclear parity made large-scale major power conflict less likely, yet did not prevent conflict outright. In fact, the acute fear that an escalation would spiral into a larger conflict helps leaders prioritize actions that signal restraint. While overt interventions are risky, leaders can prioritize escalation controls and embrace restraint signals that communicate a constrained intervention is taking place. This logic makes sense of the initial choice to intervene in a foreign conflict and the dynamics that prevent the acute escalation risk stemming from the intervention.

The Risk of Escalation

During an intervention, major powers often face a dilemma concerning how they intervene in a conflict; clients want victory and often ask for more sophisticated supplies to accomplish that goal. Major powers, which use foreign military interventions as a way to achieve goals without escalating a conflict, are often in a bind. Clients need or demand intervening states provide increasing amounts of military aid in order to gain advantages over their enemy, even if that advantage is brief.[15] Major powers often provide this increased amount of aid, so the conflict does not escalate because of major power involvement. This increased aid creates a secondary security dilemma that indirect foreign military intervention was meant to avoid. As greater quantities of weapons, regardless of sophistication, or greater quantities of intervener aid or presence flows into a country, the risk of an intervener escalation naturally increases. The requirement of victory for a client or intervener often encourages an expansion of the conflict into an area previously unaffected by the fighting. This goes counter to the fundamental appeal of war by proxy, the avoidance of a large-scale escalation response by other actors.

Conflict escalation often equals an expansion of the scope or scale of the conflict, typically tied to an increase in the magnitude of the destruction as well.[16] Expansion occurs during a conflict in two forms: the expansion of intervener involvement, which Kahn terms vertical escalation, or an expansion in the physical space, or horizontal escalation.[17] Conflict escalation can also mean an escalation of the conflict between the intervening major powers, the focus of this work, and what the author calls Intervener Escalation. Intervener Escalation is a secondary conflict that arises directly between two intervening major powers that feature a direct, large scale, and publicly acknowledged conflict. The intervening major powers find themselves in direct conflict with each other in the peripheral area of a conflict.

When major powers decide to increase their military support to a client, they risk entering an escalation/counter escalation dynamic...

When major powers decide to increase their military support to a client, they risk entering an escalation/counter escalation dynamic, similar to the dynamic action-reaction cycle found within the security dilemma. Each intervener would observe the increased support, subsequently increasing their support to their respective client. The escalation/counter-escalation dynamic is open-ended since there is no visible limit to the actions. As one intervener escalates, the other responds at a greater level, and so on. Since limits of the escalation are not clear to observers, there is a spiral towards conflict: intervener actions drive an increased reaction by the other intervener. Thomas Schelling called this classic case of brinkmanship—both sides continuously escalating actions—the “threat that leaves something to chance.”[18] Since major power interveners are unaware of the level of escalating support their opposite is providing, they respond with their own unmediated increases in support. These escalatory actions purposely exploit the new security dilemma present, and inevitably raise the risk of escalation.

A 2008 Rand study, Dangerous Thresholds: Managing Escalation in the 21st Century, describes inadvertent escalations as occurring when:

…combatant’s intentional actions are unintentionally escalatory, usually because they cross a threshold of intensity or scope in the conflict or confrontation that matters to the adversary but appears insignificant or is invisible to the party taking the action. Such a failure to anticipate the escalatory effects of an action can result from a lack of understanding of how the opponent will view the action, it may result from incorrectly anticipating the second- or third-order consequences of the action in question, or both.[19]

The central challenge of an intervening major power, therefore, is to intervene in a way that does not cause their adversary to escalate the conflict.

Major power interveners risk escalation when they increase their support to their clients with no visible restraint. The central challenge of an intervening major power, therefore, is to intervene in a way that does not cause their adversary to escalate the conflict. Major powers cannot deter or prevent all inadvertent escalations. This is because escalation is often a result of decision makers failing to choose the best actions during an intervention.[20] Therefore, to reduce the risk of an inadvertent escalation and prevent a wider conflict, interveners must be “enlightened” through restraint signaling. This is primarily a coordination challenge in which the major powers must signal their interventions limits to avoid potential intervener escalation. Once a major power can accomplish a level of coordination, they can now achieve their intervention’s political goals while avoiding the possibility of widening hostilities.

Restraint Dynamics in Competitive Foreign Military Interventions

The dynamics of how third-party major powers approach avoiding inadvertent escalation while engaging in a foreign military intervention is best modeled using a conceptual discussion of game theory. Game theory is useful because a game can serve as a formal model of a strategic situation. Strategic situations are those in which the player’s actions depend on those of their opponent.[21] The scenario in question is one of strategically interdependent behavior, in that what one player does affects the outcomes of the other and what the other player does affects outcomes of the first player. Simply put, what Player A does affects Player B and vice-versa. It is not just about winning and losing. By looking at the theory of interactive behavior through the lens of game theory, the reader can more quickly draw parallels between one situation of intervention and another, and more closely draw a generalizable theory of escalation restraint in foreign military interventions.

To visualize a possible scenario, envision two major powers, the United States and Soviet Union, intervening in some local situation that falls within Third World Cold War dynamics. As noted in the thesis above, each side views the situation in terms of relative gains (domino theory) as well as within the security dilemma, that the actions of one decreases the security of the other.[22] Both sides in this scenario exist under a status quo of the desire to avoid conflict between the major powers. Intervening powers must figure out a way to coordinate their interventions in such a way and such a manner as to not escalate the conflict past the bounds that it started in. Neither the Soviets or the U.S. wanted a limited regional war to escalate into an unlimited global war.

Coordination

The challenge for major power interveners is coordinating their decision of restraint in order to avoid a conflict escalation. When actual communication between opposition interveners is unlikely or impossible, interveners must communicate the decision of restraint through actions that establish limits. To do this successfully, major powers also must overtly communicate these limits in recognizable and verifiable ways. This verifiable coordination signals to other interveners that the major powers do not wish to escalate the conflict. Tacit coordination is one way to communicate the intervener limits that convey restraint.

Schelling introduced tacit coordination in 1960 to describe communication through deeds over words.[23] A sequenced pattern of behavior allows intervening nations to find limits and regulate the competition in a way that avoids escalation. Limits are different for each conflict and dependent on intervener interests and the strengths and weaknesses of the client. These verifiable limits show the restraint that a major power is displaying. Limits, according to Schelling, need to be “objective,” in that both sides are aware of them, and “unique,” in that they are easily identifiable.[24]

Once major powers identify limits, they can signal intervener restraint through their actions or by behaving in predictable patterns that are verifiable. Major powers can measure intervener restraint by evaluating the verifiability of the following credible restraint limits. They are: types of arms and equipment shipped, the timing of arms agreements and shipments, the difference between deployed forces as advisor or combat forces, and the use of geographic boundaries.

Weapons Shipments and Other Aid

Weapons and military aid transfers from intervener to client have been a usual hallmark of most interventions in the time period in question. Two types of distinctions regarding weapons systems are important: quantitative and qualitative. The volume and types of weapons and military aid passed to clients can show the level of support provided by the intervener, as well as communicate any restraint the intervener is taking.[25] Quantitative transfers, such as large amounts of small arms, including rifles, ammunition, rocket launchers, and even tanks and some aircraft do not seem to be useful as a restraint signal. For example, during the interwar years, 1930-1939, between the World Wars, the Soviets made up just 6% of the world arms trade.[26] By the 1970s, the Soviets made up a third of all arms transfers worldwide, with 31% of all Soviet arms transfers being sold to the Third World, much of it to Africa.

Once major powers identify limits, they can signal intervener restraint through their actions or by behaving in predictable patterns that are verifiable.

Interveners communicate restraint through the qualitative distinction between weapon systems as well. Interveners can signal levels of restraint through the type of weapons shipped. Even though volume and sophistication may increase as the conflict continues, shipping only weapons not capable of delivering strategic effects tacitly signals restraint. The provision on non-strategic weapons brings with it less escalation risk since adversary interveners may not view their shipments as raising a security risk in the intervention. This security risk comes from the nature of the weapons effects the shipped weapons are capable of achieving.

Interveners tacitly communicate restraint through the types or mix of weapons shipped and their level of sophistication and capability. This qualitative distinction between weapon types, lethal effects (strategic vs tactical) and non-lethal, can signal restraint. Small arms, such as rifles and ammunition, differ from bombers or missiles capable of deep strikes against population centers or against strategic targets, thus inflicting strategic effects.[27] Advanced weapons transfers come with a security risk. The transfer of some types of sophisticated weapons, those capable of an increased destructive power or those that change the strategic outlook of the conflict, can increase the risk of intervener escalation. For example, the United States understood this predicament in Afghanistan as it approached supplying the Stinger missile system to the Afghan Mujahedin. Shipping more than what the client needed to harass the Soviets, and the risk of the “pot boiling over” into intervener escalation, was too great.[28]

Non-lethal military aid occupies another class of distinction that can signal restraint. Lethal aid is used to destroy the enemy while non-lethal aid, such as radars, medical, or communication equipment, is used to preserve or help friendly forces, not directly destroy the enemy. Delineating a distinction between lethal aid and non-lethal aid helps identify the scope of an intervention and helps prevent an intervener escalation scenario.

Non-lethal military aid occupies another class of distinction that can signal restraint.

The Yom Kippur War is an example of the Soviets’ and Americans’ misunderstanding of the dynamic of restraint signaling and its role in controlling escalation. Conversely, the Angolan Civil War is an example of both sides understanding the restraint dynamic that arms shipments held in controlling escalations.

Timing of Arms Agreements and Shipments

The types of weapons or military aid shipped from intervener to client are important, but so is the timing of those agreements and shipments. Timing of agreement or shipments can take a few different forms. They could look like transfers before or after key regional dynamics have occurred (war or peace outbreaks), western power involvement or withdrawal, or they could be delayed around key major power negotiations. The key negotiations do not need to be concerned with the conflict at hand. They could be negotiations on other issues related to the major power relationship.[29] Rapid shipments may show a firm intervener commitment, while leisurely shipments may show a level of uncertainty surrounding the success of the client in the intervention.[30]

The consideration of arms agreement timing and shipments shows an appreciation for the consequences of how these shipments might be interpreted. Arms shipment agreements could serve as an instigator of escalation if not carefully managed. Arms shipment timing also reveals policy ideals centered on establishing tacit limits to the intervention, bounding the scope in an easily verifiable way. For example, in the Nigerian Civil War, the Soviet Union held off signing an arms agreement with the Nigerian Federal Military Government (FMG) until after the United States had declared neutrality in the conflict.[31]

Both Washington D.C. and Moscow risked escalating the conflict during the Yom Kippur War through a mismanagement of arms shipment timing. Neither side was particularly concerned with controlling when arms shipments flowed into their client since the conflict was so short and appeared, at least in the beginning, existential for Israel. The Soviets seemed the most cognizant of the timing of shipments, but even their usual restraint was absent during this conflict.

Soviet airlifts to both Egypt and Syria began on October 10, 1973, four days after the conflict started and four days before the U.S. sent its first shipments. The Soviets shipped over seventy flights of supplies a day, totaling an immense amount of supplies. The only indication the Soviets delayed any shipments was the large sealift that contained the possible nuclear weapon on October 23, the day after UN resolution 338 called for a joint ceasefire.

Washington D.C. okayed Operation Nickel Grass, the U.S. resupply of Israel, on October 12, 1973, and the first airlift loaded with supplies departed the U.S. on October 14. From the start to the end, the U.S. resupply of the Israelis was stable and constant, occurring daily. There seemed to be little regard for any of the negotiations concurrently taking place during the resupply. The sole focus seemed to be on preventing the overwhelming defeat and collapse of the Israeli military. U.S. shipments to Israel peaked on October 21, only a day before the UN passed Resolution 338, indicating that shipments were undertaken during the lead up to the first ceasefire.[32]

The timing of arms shipments to Angola, a conflict that didn’t come close to escalating, was done differently. There is no evidence that the Soviets withheld or delayed arms shipments from the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) to coerce their clients’ actions during the civil war. There is, however, a level of significance in the timing of Soviet arms shipments as they related to the involvement of the United States in Angola. The first two arms shipments, August 1974 and March 1975, took place before the United States became involved in Angola. The U.S. 40 Committee set aside just $300,000 for American political action for Angola in January 1975, hardly an amount that would make the Soviet Politburo think the U.S. government was interested in the region.[33] These shipments were in line with Soviet practices of heavy involvement before or after the U.S. got involved, timing their shipments so as not to antagonize the U.S. and possibly escalate the conflict.

The U.S.’ timing of arms was less predictable. The first $300,000 discussed above had no discernable connection other than the fact that it was very close to the signing of the Alvor agreement. This shipment seems to have been a bid to help the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) secure a better bargaining position going into the Alvor negotiations. In July and August 1975, the 40 Committee would authorize a total of $24.7 million dollars in aid and arms, all before signing the Helsinki CSCE Final Act that the Soviets avoided shipping arms around. The Tunney amendment, signed into law on December 19, 1975, curtailed CIA covert appropriations for the FNLA, but not before the CIA made two more appropriations, one on November 14 and a second on November 21. Only the final amount of all aid is unclassified, both November aid amounts remain classified, but the author was able to calculate the total to be around $6.7 million between the two appropriations.[34] Both of these monetary allotments and arms purchases occurred before Ford proposed peace through Dobrynin in December 1975.

...timing of arms shipments plays a role in controlling the escalation dynamic.

The instances discussed in both wars shows how timing of arms shipments plays a role in controlling the escalation dynamic. The Yom Kippur War demonstrates a case of not monitoring timing while the Angola case is an example of monitoring timing. Both cases also show the value of timing as a restraint signal, both in a positive and a poor way. By comparing the two case studies, the value is clear. Without controlling timing, intervening nations risk escalating the conflict regardless of other restraint dynamics used.

Advisor versus Combat Troops

Within competitive interventions, major powers often provide combat forces to their clients. Interveners accomplish this in many ways. It might be for an advise/train or advise/ assist role, where clients are provided strategic advice, campaign planning, guidance during field operations, and training. This is exemplified by the provision of U.S. help to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. It can also occur in a surrogate or direct combat role, where clients are provided covert or overt forces to augment or fight on their client’s behalf.

It is often the case that when one major power deploys maneuver forces in support of a client, the other does not. That was evident in Korea, Vietnam, and the Soviet-Afghan Wars. The 1967 Six-Day War is another example of an aversion by major powers to introducing combat forces. In May 1964, Deputy Undersecretary of State Raymond L. Garthoff met with KGB officer and Second Secretary of the Soviet Embassy, Boris N. Sedov, who passed on to Garthoff the message that if the “United States were to become directly involved militarily in the escalating Middle East Conflict, the Soviet Union, too, would have to become involved.”[35] While “become involved” was ill defined, it is reasonable to assume that the Soviets meant a widening of the conflict.

Often deployed as part of an intervention...are noncombat military advisors.

Often deployed as part of an intervention, and not accounted for in the previously outlined scenarios, are non-combat military advisors. As Anderson has pointed out, this appears to be because they fill a “non-combat” role.[36] So, even though major powers supply personnel, direct conflict between interveners in an intervention is rare.

The Soviet military, for example, often deployed combat personnel abroad within Warsaw Pact countries, but not as maneuvering ground forces outside of Europe. They would sometimes deploy fighter pilots or anti-aircraft missile operators, but their contribution to Third World conflict was marginal.[37] Often, Soviet military contributions were with military advisors, those capable of conducting routine technical assistance, intelligence support, transportation, distribution of weapons, or combat advisor roles.[38] For the Soviets, advisors did not mean frontline combat troops. Neither the Soviets nor the Americans ever committed ground forces to the Angolan or Yom Kippur conflict. As seen in other Cold War hotspots, the risk of escalation from direct confrontation informed major powers that sending forces that filled a combat role would shift the balance of power in the Third World. Both sides recognized that deploying large amounts of military forces could shift the escalation calculus of all interveners and change the limited nature of the conflict.

The Soviets maintained a healthy advisor presence in Egypt prior to the outbreak of hostilities in October 1973, even with the thorny relationship between Cairo and Moscow. Muhammad Anwar Sadat, then president of Egypt, was growing wearisome over Egypt’s survival, singularly tied to the Soviets.[39] Prior to the outbreak of the conflict, 3,000 to 4,000, and up to 10,000 to 20,000, Soviet military advisors and technicians were present in Egypt and Syria.[40] The Soviets also flew in advisors once the fighting started in a bid to keep the Egyptian and Syrian military afloat. [41]

There is little to no evidence that the Soviets took part in front line conflict on either the Suez or Golan Heights front. Soviet advisors were present in command posts of both the Egyptians and Syrians, as well as accompanying ground units that were away from the front line of combat.

In Angola, the Soviet Politburo feared that client forces were incapable of handling the influx of weapons. The same fears existed in the U.S. as John Stockwell showed when he explained the CIA’s fear that domestic forces “were not able to organize the logistical systems necessary to deploy [weapons] or to develop the communications, maintenance, combat leadership, and discipline to organize an effective military effort.”[42] In the case of the Soviets, the Politburo considered troop deployments but feared that such a brazen escalation would damage the revitalized policy of détente between Moscow and Washington.[43] Both Moscow and Washington now faced a dilemma: how to provide their African clients with needed support, while not committing their own forces and preventing an inadvertent escalation of the conflict.[44] That solution was the stark distinction between those forces sent as advisors and those sent for a combat mission. Advisors were present to train local forces, while combat forces would directly take part in the fighting. As others have noted, distinguishing between advisors and combat forces has long been a way to “communicate restraint—ostensibly because of the ‘non-combat’ role played by advisers.”[45]

Despite the amount of communist manpower present in Angola, the Soviet Politburo prohibited their advisors from participating in frontline combat missions. Soviet and Cuban advisors were intended to support their MPLA client in ways that did not risk intervener escalation. The Soviet military separated their advisors from combatants to signal their role in the intervention, a non-direct combat role. Sergey Kolomnin, a senior member of the Soviet military mission in Angola, wrote “as a rule, our advisers in the Angolan brigades moved to the rear when there were military operations.”[46] Another Soviet officer serving in Angola echoed the same when he wrote that Soviet advisors were told that they “should only instruct, train and advise… but not fight.”[47] Similar to the Soviets, Cuban advisors took steps to distance themselves from direct combat as a means of preventing escalation. Drawing a strong distinction between Soviet and Cuban forces serving as advisors to MPLA forces versus combat forces established a visible limit that could help prevent escalation: advisors were acceptable, combat troops were not.[48]

The U.S. seemed to have been more judicious with its advisors. As the case studies show, American advisors often avoided the front lines, choosing to do their advising from the safety of bases far from the front or from another country. This allowed the CIA to accomplish a similar separation by using a different means— they avoided being on the front lines at all. The CIA oversaw the advising mission for the U.S. choosing to operate outside Angola. Former CIA Director William Colby outlined that the CIA’s training mission between 1975 and 1976 occurred outside of Angola “as no CIA officers were permitted to engage in combat or train there.”[49] Stockwell similarly backed this up when he outlined CIA restrictions that prevented any staffers from being killed in Angola, and that they had no “discomfort worse than malaria.”[50] The CIA, Stockwell explained, allowed others to run the serious risk in the country while they conducted training from outside Angola.[51] This dynamic is most noticeable directly around the time of the Alvor agreements when the CIA hired western mercenaries, South African Officers, and CIA paramilitary officers to embed with FNLA forces. This was done in a bid to help Western clients achieve a better negotiating position prior to the start of negotiations.[52] With the passage of the Clark Amendment, Congress barred further U.S. money and involvement in Angola, permanently affecting CIA operations in the country. Drawing a distinction between fighter and advisor seems to have prevented escalation: once again, advisors were acceptable, combat forces were not.

...distinguishing between advisors and combat forces has long been a way to “communicate restraint...

Conclusion

This article examined the role of strategic restraint signaling between the United States and the Soviet Union during competitive foreign military interventions between the years 1973 and 1980. Based on the research, the answer is that signals of strategic restraint were present in the time period in question. This research examined two cases with differing results. In the case of the Yom Kippur War, the lack of signaling on the part of the Soviets led to a conflict escalation. In the case of the Angolan Civil War, the presence of signaling prevented the escalation of the conflict.

Foreign military interventions within inter and intra state wars are an effective way to shape the outcome of the conflict.

Foreign military interventions within inter and intra state wars are an effective way to shape the outcome of the conflict. They were an especially effective, and greatly practiced, strategy used by both sides in the Cold War. Ostensibly, these wars offered major power interveners a less risky alternative to engaging in conflict themselves. Instead, these interventions bore the risk of escalation—a local war could become a global war. Yet, in the two instances of foreign military intervention explored here, the wars never became global, even if the threat of an inadvertent escalation existed. Instead, through the calculated display of strategic restraint, both the United States and the Soviet Union were able to conduct their intervention without eliciting a major escalatory response by the other major power.

As foreign military interventions continue, the American and Soviet experience offers four generalizable lessons that may be impactful in contemporary foreign military interventions.

First, major powers who intervene in wars do not necessarily want to go to war with other interveners. They are interested in seeing their client win and their prestige grow but may try to limit their interventions to both achieve victory and prevent any escalation.

Second, interventions by major powers carry inherent risks. Both the U.S. and Soviet Union believed that interventions during the time period of this study were worth the potential risk of escalation, even if they didn’t actually want that escalation to occur. Understanding what risks are worth taking in regard to escalation, and what risks are not worth taking is key to any future intervention scenario.

Third, open and direct communication between major power interveners is not always possible. Instead, as both major powers demonstrated, interveners may choose to communicate their limits tacitly— communication through deeds over words. Interveners do not need direct communication to signal a desire to constrain intervention to prevent escalation. Instead, the act of restraint is the signal. Equally important is the receptiveness of receiving a signal. When interveners are unable to see the signal, or worse, unreceptive to the signal of strategic restraint, there is a high possibility of intervener escalation.

Fourth, strategic restraint signaling can take many forms. In the case studies presented, four restraint signals were readily visible in all or some of the wars. They are: restraining weapons shipments and other military aid, restraining the timing of arms shipments, restraining what type of military forces, advisor versus combat soldiers deployed, and placing geographic and/ or targeting restraints on forces. There are most likely other restraint factors that could be used to expand the theory.

In the future, foreign military interventions in inter- and intrastate wars will continue. The research presented in this paper will help to draw clear distinctions around conflict escalation and hopefully help to prevent escalation wars between major powers. Major power interveners, armed with an understanding of limits and the power of strategic restraint, may be more apt to identify the necessary signals and avoid future intervener escalations. In the future, research applying strategic restraint to foreign military interventions is necessary. The prevalence of war is not diminishing. Major powers are bound to intervene in wars on opposing sides of a foreign military intervention. To avoid conflict escalation in interventions in the future, the research presented in this work is worth expanding to other examples outside those presented within this work. IAJ

Notes

1Hal Brands, Latin America’s Cold War (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012), 1.

2Andrew Mumford, Proxy Warfare, 1st edition. (Cambridge: Polity, 2013), 100.

3Tim Weiner, The Folly and the Glory: America, Russia, and Political Warfare 1945–2020 (S.l.: Holt Paperbacks, 2022).

4Bruce D. Porter, The USSR in Third World Conflicts: Soviet Arms and Diplomacy in Local Wars 1945-1980 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 6.

5Austin Carson, Secret Wars: Covert Conflict in International Politics (Princeton ; Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2018), 11.

6Spencer D. Bakich, Success and Failure in Limited War: Information and Strategy in the Korean, Vietnam, Persian Gulf, and Iraq Wars, Illustrated edition. (Chicago ; London: University of Chicago Press, 2014), 5.

7Todd C. Flynn, “Limited War and Regional Conflict Escalation” (Stanford University, 1994), 4.

8Thomas C. Schelling, “Bargaining, Communication, and Limited War,” Conflict Resolution 1, no. 1 (1957): 20.

9Kissinger felt that nuclear threats were a meaningful method of restraint, but that the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) would lead to catastrophic destruction. Kissinger pursued a more strategic limited nuclear plan that Nixon would support in 1974.

10Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, Reprint edition. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981).

11Carson points out in Secret Wars that there are multiple different definitions of what a foreign military intervention includes. Patrick Regan defines third-party intervention as “the supply or transfer of troops, hardware, or intelligence and logistical support to the parties in a conflict. My definition closely aligns with Regan’s. See Noel Anderson, “Competitive Intervention, Protracted Conflict, and the Global Prevalence of Civil War,” International Studies Quarterly 63, no. 3 (September 1, 2019): 692–706; Carson, Secret Wars; Patrick M. Regan, “Third-Party Interventions and the Duration of Intrastate Conflicts,” The Journal of Conflict Resolution 46, no. 1 (2002): 2.

12Noel Anderson, “Competitive Intervention and Its Consequences for Civil Wars” (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2016), 24.

13Anderson, “Competitive Intervention, Protracted Conflict, and the Global Prevalence of Civil War”.

14Robert Jervis, “Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma,” World Politics 30, no. 2 (1978): 167–214.

15Anderson, “Competitive Intervention and Its Consequences for Civil Wars,” 46; William W. Kaufmann, ed., “Limited Warfare,” in Military Policy and National Security, (Center of International Studies: Princeton University Press, 1956), 112.

16Herman Kahn, On Escalation: Metaphors and Scenarios (New York, N.Y.: Frederick A. Prager, Publishers, 1965); Richard Smoke, War: Controlling Escalation, 1st Edition. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978).

17Kahn, On Escalation: Metaphors and Scenarios.

18Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict.

19Forrest E. Morgan et al., “Dangerous Thresholds: Managing Escalation in the 21st Century” (July 8, 2008): 23, accessed February 22, 2021, https://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG614.html.

20Ibid., 24.

21Burkhard C. Schipper, “Discovery and Equilibrium in Games with Unawareness | Elsevier Enhanced Reader,” Journal of Economic Theory, no. 198 (2021): 1, accessed February 23, 2022, https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S0022053121001824?token=3E0771DFF0A1DFF74CA7C2130186B3294C4C8C99DF089E68F1B179833A67C00F25D8F86838692B2FB2654D875B037B14&originRegion=us-east-1&originCreation=20220223200226.

22Richard W. Maass, “Salami Tactics: Faits Accomplis and International Expansion in the Shadow of Major War,” Texas National Security Review 5, no. 1 (November 9, 2021): 21.

23Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 53.

24Ibid., 57–58.

25Porter, The USSR in Third World Conflicts, 63.

26Ibid., 37.

27These classes of weapons differ from nuclear weapons, even the tactical kind, whose shipment to a client would undoubtedly cause an intervener escalation.

28Alan J. Kuperman, “The Stinger Missile and U.S. Intervention in Afghanistan,” Political Science Quarterly 114, no. 2 (1999): 225.

29Porter, The USSR in Third World Conflicts, 64.

30Ibid.

31Ibid., 106–109.

32Ibid, 136.

33Nathaniel Davis, “The Angola Decision of 1975: A Personal Memoir,” Foreign Affairs 57, no. 1 (Fall 1978).

34“183. Letter From Director of Central Intelligence Bush to the Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense (Mahon)” (Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Kissinger Papers, Box CL 104, Geopolitical File, Angola Chronological File. Secret; Sensitive., March 18, 1976), accessed April 7, 2022, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v28/d183.

35Isabella Ginor, “The Russians Were Coming: The Soviet Military Threat in the 1967 Six-Day War” 4, no. 4 (December 2020), accessed March 14, 2022, https://ciaotest.cc.columbia.edu/olj/meria/meria00_gii01.html.

36Noel Anderson, “Competitive Intervention and Its Consequences for Civil Wars” (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2016), 52.

37Bruce D. Porter, The USSR in Third World Conflicts: Soviet Arms and Diplomacy in Local Wars 1945-1980 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 217.

38Ibid., 229.

39Central Intelligence Agency, “Intelligence Memorandum: Soviet-Egyptian Relations: An Uneasy Alliance” (Central Intelligence Agency, March 28, 1972), 3, Central Intelligence Reading Room, accessed February 22, 2022, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000309640.pdf.

40William B Quant, Soviet Policy in the October 1973 War (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, May 1976), 6, accessed March 13, 2022, https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reports/2006/R1864.pdf; Central Intelligence Agency, “Intelligence Memorandum: Soviet-Egyptian Relations: An Uneasy Alliance,” 6.

41Plainclothes Russian air force technicians reassembled the MiG-21s that were shipped to Syria in the airlift; Russians drove tanks…; air traffic controllers flew to Egypt and Syria to operate radar equipment that was flown in; Soviet engineers repaired military equipment damaged in the fighting. See Porter, The USSR in Third World Conflicts, 134.

42John Stockwell, In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story (W. W. Norton, 1978), 176.

43Many notable academics have written on the fear that escalation played in relation to the Détente period. See Piero Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976 (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 231; Porter, The USSR in Third World Conflicts, 163; Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 232–233.

44Stockwell, In Search of Enemies, 176.

45Anderson, “Competitive Intervention and Its Consequences for Civil Wars,” 105.

46Sergey Kolomnin, Russkii Spetznaz v Afrike (Moscow: Eksmo, 2005), 13.

47Piero Gleijeses, Visions of Freedom: Havana, Washington, Pretoria, and the Struggle for Southern Africa, 1976-1991 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2016), 187.

48Noel Anderson, “Competitive Intervention, Protracted Conflict, and the Global Prevalence of Civil War,” International Studies Quarterly 63, no. 3 (September 1, 2019): 692–706.

49William Colby and Peter Forbath, Honorable Men: My Life in the CIA, First Edition. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1978), 78.

50Stockwell, In Search of Enemies, 177.

51Ibid., 247.

52Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions, 350–354.

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