US Military Primacy and the New Operating System

Abstract

Since its emergence in 1998, the concept of Network Centric Warfare (NCW) has become a central driver behind America's military transformation and seems to offer the possibility of true integration between multinational military formations. Even though NCW, or variations on its themes, has been adopted by many armed services, it is a concept in operational and doctrinal development. It is shaping not only how militaries operate, but, just as importantly, what they are operating with, and potentially altering the strategic landscape.

This paper examines how the current military dominance of the US over every other state means that only it has the capacity to sustain military activity on a global scale and that other states participating in US-led coalitions must be prepared to work in an interoperable fashion. It explores the application of computer networks to military operations in conjunction with the need to secure a network's information and to assure that it accurately represents situational reality. Drawing on an examination of how networks affected naval operations in the Persian Gulf during 2002 and 2003 as conducted by America's Australian and Canadian coalition partners, the paper warns that in seeking allies with the requisite technological capabilities, but also those that it can trust with its information resources, the US may be heading into a very secure digital corner.

Notes

¹ See http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/spending.htm.

² Ann Scott Tyson, ‘Military Goals Claim Priority over Diplomacy’, Christian Science Monitor, vol. 93, no. 231, 24 October, 2001, p. 3; ‘In Rumsfeld's Words: Guidelines for Committing Forces’, New York Times, 14 October, 2002, p. A9.

³ As Victor David Hanson and David B. Ralston have both argued, the creeping standardisation of military practice is nothing new. However, in the past other powers have had several models from which to choose. Japan, for example, modelled its navy on the British example and its army on the German. Presently, all look to the American military for guidance on doctrinal policy and capital investment. Victor David Hanson, Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power (New York: Doubleday, 2001); David B. Ralston, Importing the European Army (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1990).

⁴ Of course, this does not imply that the United States is militarily omnipotent, as the ongoing insurgencies around the world amply demonstrate. But as Hanson points out, where smaller powers challenge the US, they do so in their own lands, and often use technology developed by the United States. These powers have not been able to develop indigenous technology capable of defeating the US, nor are they free to operate in the heartland of North America. Hanson, Carnage and Culture, pp. 443, 453. Barry Posen, ‘Command of the Commons’, International Security, vol. 28, no. 1, 2003, pp. 8–9.

⁵ Ibid.

⁶ Ibid., pp. 17–18.

⁷ The first National Security Strategy, in 1991, lists a range of ‘Interests and Objectives’ that the US would pursue ‘in concert with its allies’. In the 2002 version, it is noted that the US will ‘Strengthen alliances to defeat Global Terrorism and work to prevent attacks against us and our friends’. See http://www.fas.org/man/docs/91805-nss.htm; http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss3.html.

⁸ Kenneth Waltz, ‘Globalization and American Power’, The National Interest, Spring 2000, p. 54.

⁹ Robert Jervis, American Foreign Policy in a New Era (New York: Routledge, 2005), p. 12.

¹⁰ Ibid., p. 31.

¹¹ Christopher Layne, ‘America as European Hegemon’, The National Interest, Summer 2003, p. 28.

¹² Raymond Aron, Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations (New York: Doubleday, 1966), p. 99.

¹³ Joseph Nye, ‘Military De-Globalization’, Foreign Policy, January–February 2001, pp. 82–3.

¹⁴ David Calleo, ‘Power, Wealth, and Wisdom: The United States and Europe after Iraq’, The National Interest, Summer 2003, p. 12.

¹⁵ Layne, ‘America as European Hegemon’.

¹⁶ Barton Gellman, ‘Pentagon Would Preclude a Rival Superpower’, Washington Post, 11 March, 1992, p. A1.

¹⁷ Interview: Dennis Ross, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/iraq/interviews/ross.html.

¹⁸ Interview: Barton Gellman, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/iraq/interviews/gellman.html.

¹⁹ Excerpts From 1992 Draft ‘Defense Planning Guidance’, http://www/pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/iraq/etc/wolf.html.

²⁰ Calleo, ‘Power, Wealth, and Wisdom’, p. 7.

²¹ Excerpts from Defense Planning Guidance, draft, 1992.

²² For example: ‘It has taken almost a decade for us to comprehend the true nature of this new threat. Given the goals of rogue states and terrorists, the United States can no longer solely rely on a reactive posture as we have in the past. The inability to deter a potential attacker, the immediacy of today's threats, and the magnitude of potential harm that could be caused by our adversaries' choice of weapons, do not permit that option. We cannot let our enemies strike first … The United States has long maintained the option of preemptive actions to counter a sufficient threat to our national security. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction – and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack. To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively.’ The National Security Strategy of the United States, 2002, http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss5.html.

²³ Quoted in Jervis, American Foreign Policy, p. 90.

²⁴ Hubert Védrine famously described the United States as a ‘hyper-power’ (hyper puissance) during the Clinton administration. Calleo, ‘Power, Wealth, and Wisdom’, p. 8.

²⁵ John Shalikashvili, Joint Vision 2010 (Washington DC: Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1997), p. 25.

²⁶ Department of Defense, Transformation Planning Guidance, April 2003, p. 3.

²⁷ Paul Wolfowitz, ‘Remembering the Future’, The National Interest, Spring 2000, p. 41.

²⁸ Robert Kagan and William Kristol, ‘The Present Danger’, The National Interest, Spring 2000, p. 63.

²⁹ Robert B. Strassler, The Landmark Thucydides (New York: The Free Press, 1996), p. 114.

³⁰ Kishore Mahbubani, ‘The Impending Demise of the Postwar System’, Survival, vol. 47, no. 4, Winter 2005–2006, p. 17.

³¹ Walter Russell Mead, Power Terror and War: American Grand Strategy in a World at Risk (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), p. 120. From a different political perspective, Christopher Layne agrees with this conclusion. ‘The damage inflicted on Washington's ties to Europe by the Bush Administration is likely to prove real, lasting, and, at the end of the day, irreparable.’ Layne, ‘America as European Hegemon’, p. 17.

³² Robert E. Osgood, The Entangling Alliance (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1962), p. vii; Henry Kissinger, The Troubled Partnership (New York: McGraw Hill, 1965), p. 5.

³³ Ian Clark, Globalization and Fragmentation: International Relations in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 1; R. J. Barry Jones, Globalisation and Interdependence in the International Political Economy: Rhetoric and Reality (London: Pinter Publishers, 1995), p. 13; Andrew Hurrell, ‘Explaining the Resurgence of Regionalism in World Politics’, Review of International Studies, vol. 21, no. 4, 1995, p. 345.

³⁴ Christopher Coker, Globalisation and Insecurity in the Twenty-first Century: NATO and the Management of Risk, Adelphi Paper 345 (London: IISS, 2002), p. 21; Clark, Globalization and Fragmentation, p. 18.

³⁵ Coker, Globalisation and Insecurity, p. 25; Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars: Organised Violence in the Global Era (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999), p. 70; M. Singer and A. Wildavsky, The Real World Order: Zones of Peace/Zones of Turmoil (Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, 1993), pp. 4, 6; Thomas P. Barnett, The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Berkley Books, 2004).

³⁶ Frank G. Hoffman, ‘The New Normalcy’, E-Notes, http://www.fpri.org/enotes/20060512.americawar.hoffman.newnormalcy.html; Charles C. Krulak, ‘The Strategic Corporal: Leadership in the Three Block War’, Marines Magazine, January 1999.

³⁷ Coker, Globalisation and Insecurity, pp. 27–31.

³⁸ Lawrence Freedman, ‘The Transatlantic Agenda: Vision and Counter-Vision’, Survival, vol. 47, no. 4, Winter 2005–2006, p. 20.

³⁹ Ulrich Beck, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (London: Sage, 1992); Ulrich Beck, World Risk Society (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999); Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990); J. Franklin (ed.), The Politics of Risk Society (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998); Barbara Adam, Ulrich Beck and Joost van Loon, Risk Society and Beyond: Critical Issues for Social Theory (London: Sage, 2000).

⁴⁰ Coker, Globalisation and Insecurity, p. 57; Beck, Risk Society, p. 2.

⁴¹ Anthony Giddens, Runaway World: How Globalisation Is Reshaping Our Lives (London: Profile Books, 1999) p. 26.

⁴² Beck, Risk Society, p. 29.

⁴³ Ibid., p. 13.

⁴⁴ Scott Lash and Bryan Wynne, ‘Forward’, in Beck (ed.), World Risk Society, p. 4.

⁴⁵ Beck, Risk Society, p. 27.

⁴⁶ Coker, Globalisation and Insecurity, pp. 72–5.

⁴⁷ Giddens, Runaway World, pp. 29–31.

⁴⁸ Michael Ignatieff, Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond (Toronto: Viking Press, 2000), p. 197.

⁴⁹ Kathryn Cochrane, ‘Kosovo Targeting – A Bureaucratic and Legal Nightmare’, Aerospace Centre Paper 3 (Canberra: Aerospace Development Centre, June 2001), p. 12.

⁵⁰ Rosemary Foot, ‘Introduction’, in Rosemary Foot, John Lewis Gaddis and Andrew Hurrell (eds), Order and Justice in International Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 1.

⁵¹ Lawrence Freedman, ‘Strategic Studies and the Problem of Power’, in Lawrence Freedman, Paul Hayes and Robert O'Neill (eds), War, Strategy, and International Politics: Essays in Honour of Sir Michael Howard (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992).

⁵² Andrew Hurrell, ‘Order and Justice in International Relations: What Is At Stake?’, in Foot, Gaddis and Hurrell (eds), Order and Justice in International Relations, p. 27.

⁵³ Ignatieff, Virtual War, p. 201.

⁵⁴ In mid-2006, the US pledged $116 million at a Sudan donors' conference, the largest contribution of all the delegations present. ‘United States Commits $116 Million at Sudan Donors Conference’, State Department press release, 19 July 2006, http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2006/69224.htm.

⁵⁵ Freedman, ‘Strategic Studies and the Problem of Power’, p. 290.

⁵⁶ Ignatieff, Virtual War, p. 203.

⁵⁷ Bruce R. Nardulli et al., Disjointed War: Military Operations in Kosovo, 1999 (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Arroyo Center, 2002), p. 2.

⁵⁸ William Shawcross, Allies: The US, Britain, Europe and the War in Iraq (London: Atlantic Books, 2003), pp. 82–3.

⁵⁹ Cochrane, ‘Kosovo Targeting’, p. 13.

⁶⁰ Ibid., p. 11.

⁶¹ Ignatieff, Virtual War, pp. 198–200.

⁶² Freedman, ‘Strategic Studies and the Problem of Power’, pp. 291–3.

⁶³ Freedman, ‘The Transatlantic Agenda’, p. 30.

⁶⁴ Justin Huggler, ‘Israelis Trained US Troops in Jenin-Style Urban Warfare’, The Independent, 29 March 2003.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Paul T. Mitchell

Paul T. Mitchell is an Associate Professor at the Institute for Defence and Strategic Studies at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and the Canadian Forces College in Toronto, where he was Director of Academics between 2000 and 2004. His research interests are in US military policy and operations, especially in the area of transformation and emerging operational concepts. In 2003 he was awarded the United States Naval Institute's Literary Award for the best article on surface naval warfare for ‘Network Centric Warfare and Small Navies, is there a role?’ published in Naval War College Review. He has published in Journal of Strategic Studies, Armed Forces and Society, US Naval Institute Proceedings, US Naval War College Review and the Canadian Military Journal. In 1997 he co-edited Multinational Naval Cooperation and Foreign Policy in the 21st Century (Ashgate). He has taught at Queen's University, Ontario, Dalhousie University, the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre, Canada's Royal Military College and the SAFTI Military Institute, Singapore. He has a PhD from Queen's University in political studies and a masters from King's College London in war studies. This work is dedicated to his friend and mentor, Joel Sokolsky: J'espère que cela en valait la peine.