Modern States with Ancient Dilemmas: Porous Boundaries Between Civilian & Military Authority

The first session of DIP 750 we touched on the distinction modern states have from the ancient model of statecraft and military policy.  Modern states divide responsibility between civilian and military systems and organizations.  That is in stark contrast to the Ancient Romans, just as one example, where victorious generals often saw their political stock rise along with their military glory.  However, hard as we might try, there continue to be disputes about the parameters set on military power, and not just in developing democracies who have a history of military dictatorship.  One of the most consequential and contentious civilian/military standoffs of the 20th century happened within the United States government post WWII.

One of the most calamitous aspects of the Korean War was the repercussion it had on American foreign policy, illustrated rather perfectly by the policy disagreement and personal collision between President Harry Truman and General MacArthur.  Douglas MacArthur was first introduced to the American military scene in the Far East in 1941, when FDR appointed him Commander of American forces in the region after the Japanese invasion of Indochina.  Having already served as Supreme Commander for Allied Powers in Japan, MacArthur was no typical general.  As de facto ruler of over 80 million Japanese citizens, he was not used to answering to his civilian superiors, including the Commander-in-Chief.

Generally, the characteristics that distinguish politicians from officers are that officers think tactically, while politicians think politically.  MacArthur thought tactically and politically, and he fancied himself to be quite the politician as well as a brilliant General.  The beginning of the miscommunication and mutual distrust between Truman and MacArthur was that Truman initially saw him as a political foe, as someone aligned with the Republican Party.  He feared that MacArthur might run against him in 1952, after a groundswell of support had formed for him during the last several election cycles. The catalyst for their divergence would prove to be less about domestic politics, and more about the dichotomy between the civilian and military control of foreign policy decisions.

Our first session also touched on the fact that the military apparatus inevitably deals with problems of miscommunication between civilians and military personnel.  That very dichotomy began to manifest itself when the Joint Chiefs began reevaluating their initial analysis of Korea and the rest of Eastern Asia in mid-1950. There was a misunderstanding between Washington and the military personnel on the ground with regards to Korea from the beginning of the conflict, for nearly all the U.S. intelligence agencies were disastrously false in their predictions pertaining to North Korea’s attack on South Korea.  Additionally, General MacArthur’s insistence and eagerness to engage the Chinese militarily alarmed the Truman administration. 

Truman was dubious of MacArthur’s dismissive attitude towards him in the past when he reached out to the General, saying, “I have always regretted that General MacArthur declined the invitations that were extended to him to return to the United States, even if only for a short visit, during his years in Japan.” Truman suggest that part of the disconnect between himself and MacArthur was because the General had been in the Orient for 14 years, and all his thinking revolved around the Far East.  Perhaps the straw that broke the camel’s back was Gen. MacArthur’s meddling in domestic politics, as well as his seemingly open alliance with the President’s Republican opponents in Congress.  Truman explained that in his mind there was a right and wrong kind of victory.  It was MacArthur’s apparent zero sum theory of victory in Korea that led Truman to remove him from his post.

On April 11^th, 1951, Truman formally fired MacArthur from all his official posts.  Truman did acknowledge the extraordinary accomplishments of Gen. MacArthur, saying he was “one of our greatest military commanders,” but since he openly disagreed with American foreign policy, he could not remain at his post. Truman writes in his memoirs his justification for MacArthur’s firing, “Our Constitution embodies the principle of civilian control of the military.  This was the principle that General MacArthur threatened.  I do not believe that he purposefully decided to challenge civilian control of the military, but the result of his behavior was that this fundamental principle of free government was in danger.”  The President must be the vanguard against such disregard for civilian authority, by assuring that we do not devolve into a military dictatorship through the oftentimes-subtle neglect of civilian oversight. Truman’s vigilance of this issue was even more indispensable during wartime, when the people are susceptible to such claims about the need for more military autonomy.  While it might have cost him a third term in the White House, his belief in the American system of non-military governance and respect for the Office of the Presidency transcended his ambitions for his political career.

Basic Counterinsurgency Principles

       Counterinsurgency is the set of political, economic, social, military, legal and psychological activities, institutional and non-institutional, necessary to neutralize an insurgency (ideologically motivated to provoke  a political change of a country) and respond to the main reasons for frustration of the population. More technically, counterinsurgency is a “comprehensive civilian and military efforts designed to simultaneously defeat and contain insurgency and address its root causes”. It is a military doctrine aimed at gaining the support of the population in a conflict between an insurgent movement and a government. This doctrine is based on civilian -military actions, intelligence activities, and psychological warfare. Counterinsurgency has long been associated with the excessive use of force and torture. Counterinsurgency has many principles.    

  

    The principles of counterinsurgency apply in the context of a civil war or military occupation to combat an insurrection. This military theory brings together a set of tactics mainly used by ground forces and supported by surveillance (reconnaissance and intelligence) and air strikes.  David Petraeus, a former CIA Director, defines counterinsurgency as "win hearts and minds" in the Counter Insurgency Field Manual FM 3-24 as follows: "win hearts means persuading people that their best interests are protected by defeating the insurgents. Experts argue that this method is “Population-centric Counterinsurgency”. Gian Gentile, in his article, Population Centric COIN and the Army“ defines this term as “a military operation, a method, nothing more and nothing less”.

      Intelligence thus plays a crucial role because it allows undermining the support of population to the insurgents with the aim of dismantling the active or sleeping cells. Counterinsurgency is then based on simple principles including segregating local population from the insurgents, occupying areas where insurgents previously held, and  coordinating  the  actions over a wide geographical area and over a long period so that the insurgents  will no longer have access to the population that support them.

     Counterinsurgency has been for a long period of time carried out within a country’s borders because of the sovereignty issue. Today, it goes beyond and imposes itself within the framework of the external operations. This new characteristic of contemporary conflict, particularly witnessed in Iraq and Afghanistan, has provided an opportunity to redefine the contexts of counterinsurgency implementation.

Counterinsurgency Factors and Operational Environment

     There are many forms of insurgency. Extreme violence is one form that often justifies the intervention of external military forces. In Afghanistan for example, counterinsurgency intervention was (is) carried out within a framework of stabilization and reconstruction process aimed at restoring political, security, and social conditions. To counter the insurgency whose main tactics include violence, kidnapping, beheading, bombings, and subversion, the emphasis is put on security strategy in order to end the insurgent’s propaganda.

  

 Besides all tactics used to combat an insurgency,  the reconstruction process should also be taken into account. It consists of stability, namely governance, economic, and social development. It remains essential in the fight against insurgency. Actions tend to de-legitimize and deprive insurgents of their popular support. In the majority of cases, insurgencies grow in a degraded political and social environment marked by a lack of governance and economic and social development.

Centralizing Standards of Police Training and Education: Creating Better Press for U.S. Police

            To begin working in a psychiatric hospital, all new staff is required to take extensive training on the use nonviolent methods to deescalate potentially dangerous situations. These trainings include classes, on-line trainings, and simulation of real life tactics with other staff members to avoid using any physical contact with a patient. Refresher courses for all employees are required as well. Use of physical force is only applied if the person is a clear threat to himself or others. Quantitative evidence provides proof that the use of physical force has drastically reduced since use of these practices became mandatory for this national network of psychiatric/rehabilitation hospitals. Similar trainings and principles are applied when working in a public school system for teachers who are behavior specialists. Use of these various nonviolent methods to deescalate behaviors has been shown to be highly effective. Since my experience and education are in the field of behavior modification, I searched for evidence that U.S. police departments are requiring similar training for recruits to avoid physical and lethal force in potentially violent situations.

            The need to rehash the extensive press coverage of excessive use of force by the police in the United States is unnecessary. The public has perhaps become desensitized to videos of shooting and killings of unarmed civilians and incidents of police brutality. To be clear, I am not taking a position that these incidents are happening throughout the U.S. on a regular basis or that the majority of police are committing such acts.  The press coverage of these certain incidents has brought the subject to light and there is a call to look into policing to determine whether the use of lethal force can be avoided in the future. It has become clear to the public that other tactics might have been used to prevent such violence and death. There is still public outcry and ongoing investigations into police corruption and profiling.    However the fact remains that the police in America use physical force to an excessive degree in comparison to other countries throughout the world.  

            The death of a knife-wielding civilian, Kajieme Powell, by a St. Louis policeman was the starting point in an interview with Maria Haberfeld, professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and author of books regarding police forces in multiple countries. The interview centers about the topic of training of police officers in the United States. When asked, Haberfeld acknowledges that the distance of 21 feet between Powell and the police permitted lethal force under department rules. I couldn’t help but think of a situation in which I was engaged. Though the situation was clearly very different, I did encounter an individual wielding of a sharp metal object, comparable to a knife and at a much closer proximity. I was fortunate to be with a group of trained individuals, though not the police. With the use of de-escalation methods, the result of the situation required no use of physical force, and no injuries to the individual or others. Haberfeld asserts that the way police officers are trained is inadequate; the majority of police officers’ training focuses on the technical part: the use of force. There is a dearth of emotional, psychological, and physiological aspects in police training.

http://prospect.org/article/expert-us-police-training-use-deadly-force-woefully-inadequate

            Each state and each jurisdiction have different training requirements. There is no standard national curriculum: agencies develop their own programs. Each state operates under a statewide commission that establishes minimum selection standards for law enforcement officers, sets minimum education and training standards. This commission also serves as the certification or licensing authority. The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) Census of State and Local Law Enforcement Training Academies provide statistics and percentages that indicate the average number hours of instruction required per recruit on various training topics. The specific topics listed are relevant to my inquiries: defensive tactics (60hrs), firearms skills (71), use of force (21), and use of non-lethal weapons (16). From this source, I can only compare the area of Self-Improvement, which training topics include ethics and integrity (8hrs), health and fitness (49), communications (15), professionalism (11), and stress prevention/management (6). There is no clear definition of what “defensive tactics” are in order to gain a better understanding of whether these include verbal de-escalation and other methods that do not involve physical force. According to BJS, the median duration of basic recruit training was 21 weeks across all academies with a range anywhere from four weeks to six months. After basic training, the median number of hours in the field-training segment was 180 hours or about eight weeks.

http://discoverpolicing.org/what_does_take/?fa=training_academy_life

            How effective is our method of policing in United States? Traditionally citizens have believed a centralized, national police force would result in an excessive concentration of power. There are questions of how local communities could hold a national police force accountable for abuses of power and whether the national government could use its police force to hold power illegitimately. Therefore U.S. police operate largely on a local basis with the ideal that this decentralization ties the police and the community closer together. However, there are many drawbacks to decentralized police system: the flow of intelligence may be delayed or obstructed, a limited relationship between police and overseers could result in corruption of both parties, and the variance and disparity of training and education hours.

            Handing over governance of training requirements and educational curriculum and standards to a local level leaves the community at the mercy of the quality and rigor of these minimum standards.  In order to have a working relationship between the police and the community, there must exist an element of social trust. If different elements of society cannot trust one another, the effectiveness of the unit will suffer.

In 2000, The United States Department of Justice (USDOJ), Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Office and the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) collaborated to pilot a problem based learning strategy, titled the Police Training Officer (PTO) Program.  The program sets out to create a paradigm shift from reactive to proactive law enforcement. The program uses training sets that encourage new officers “to think using a proactive mindset, enabling the identification of and solution to problems within their communities.” The PTO model seeks to involve the community as a collaborative partner in determining solutions to local issues, thus utilizing the principles of community policing at the very foundation of the post-academy experience.

http://www.calea.org/calea-update-magazine/issue-101/police-training-officer-pto-program

            Could a more centralized, enforced regimen of training and education create a more effective type of policing, that is, less use of physical/lethal force? The social aspects of use of force correlate to how events and incidents affect the community and how it impacts police-community relations. Would a national centralization of police training standards be met with disapproval? Could enforcing minimum selection standards and minimum recruit training and education standards with the inclusion of the PTO type model on a national level create a more cohesive national police standard while still keeping the police power system decentralized? Haberfeld is not reluctant to share her opinion about the quality of American police education and retraining. “There are a host of variables that go into things. And those variables, at least in my mind, should be constantly addressed, and not end with the police officer graduating from police academy, and then the only thing they have to do is to qualify twice a year whether or not they can still carry a weapon. But this qualifying twice a year is focused completely on the technical aspect of use of deadly force. An average police department, all they care about is whether you have a GED, and you didn't use drugs in the last three years.” Ouch.

Military Defectiveness

              In The Effectiveness of Military Organizations, the authors find that the analysis of military effectiveness must include qualitative organizational attitudes, behaviors, and relationships that span a military organization's full activities at the political, strategic, operational, and tactical levels. Similarly, In Making Military Might, Rosa Brooks finds that the qualitative aspects of military organization and activity are essential sources of state power. Quantitative indicators of power can be highly misleading. These findings have practical implications for debates about U.S. defense spending. The U.S. should reorient the way the military applies its defense dollars. Greater expenditure on training, doctrine, and enhancement of organizational efficiency and integration would serve better than the current preoccupation with the procurement of expensive, technologically advanced weapons systems.

            The problematic F-35 project is an example of this trend. The project is seven years late and seventy percent over budget. It’s been delayed by countless design flaws and malfunctions, which has caused massive cost overruns with no end in sight. Each plane could cost up to $115 million dollars, with a lifetime program cost of $1.5 trillion dollars, and there are serious concerns about the plane’s durability. Meanwhile, the air force is facing a critical pilot shortage. The shortage of Air Force pilots and other personnel to operate the UAV’s and jets has led the Pentagon to rely more on private contractors for reconnaissance missions. There are at least several hundred contractors, many of them former drone or fighter pilots who are making double or triple their military salaries.

            America’s new class of aircraft carriers also faces several issues. The $13-billion USS Gerald R. Ford is already two years behind schedule, and the U.S. Navy's newest aircraft carrier is facing more delays after the Pentagon's top weapons tester concluded the ship is still not ready for combat. The Navy is developing a new class of carrier that cannot function properly, and has designed them to launch F-35 fighters that are not ready to fly their missions. This is all happening during an era of out-of-control budgets, which bodes poorly for American sea power and leadership ahead. Meanwhile, China is investing in relatively affordable “carrier killer” missiles and attack submarines.

                      That the Navy is concentrating larger percentages of its total force structure on large, high signature, and increasingly vulnerable ships endangers America’s future. The pivot to Asia should result in a pivot in procurement to subsurface vehicles for deterrence. Yet, the Navy is straining to build two attack submarines a year, while it could afford to build ten at the cost of just one carrier and its air wing to much greater strategic effect. In addition, unlike most of the surface ship acquisition programs, attack submarine programs have had a generally good record for coming in on schedule and budget.

                Research on military effectiveness therefore represents a solution to the current trend of wasteful defense spending and provides insight on ways the U.S. military can maintain its comparative advantage in training and combat readiness. 

The Swarm

            In Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle, Stephen Biddle argues that force employment is central to modern war. Biddle focuses on land warfare tactics and how such tactics determine the outcome of war; in doing so, Biddle largely discounts and ignores the importance of naval and air forces. Yet the biggest critique of the book comes from Biddle’s opinion of technology. The author does not believe that we are undergoing a revolution in military affairs. Biddle states, “the modern system works by exploiting properties of military technology that have changed little since 1918 and are changing only slowly today.” This statement may have been true at the time of press, but today, technology is changing rapidly and so are the military implications. Force deployment or tactics were important before the current system and will be so after. But in arguing his case, Biddle suffers from a lack of imagination and downplays how the current system of force employment itself resulted from technological development. The battlefields of 2018 and beyond may show little resemblance to the battlefields of 1918.

Irrelevant

            There are many examples of the ways emerging technology could change the methods militaries wage modern wars and the defense tactics nations employ. With questions surrounding the presidential election, cyber warfare has become a very real concern. The United States economy and military rely heavily on cyber and satellites for communication. Many U.S. officials and scholars believe that the U.S. is falling behind and could not withstand a significant cyber attack. Our satellites remain vulnerable as well, while China is weaponizing outer space. The irony is that a cyber and space war could potentially eliminate a military’s current command and control structures, resetting military operations to something like the modern system employed during the first and second world wars. Therefore, outer space and cyber space will play dominant roles in future wars. 

            An area that could be more revolutionary is the use of unmanned weapons platforms. The U.S. military is introducing more drones to the battlefield every year. If Boston Dynamics’ work is any indication, drone soldiers, sci-fi terminator terrors, may be coming to a conflict near you. Soon, enemy combatants may never enter the same physical space. The combination of AI and improvements in robotics will be revolutionary. Drone swarms are the future of warfare. A mass of low-cost expendable systems could change the way militaries fight. The key to a swarm is that the entire group acts as a single unit, but they're not centrally controlled. Instead, each member of the swarm uses software for coordination that mimics the way flocks of birds and schools of fish behave. Currently, a remote pilot individually flies a military drone like the Reaper, but a single operator could command any number of drones in a swarm. And if drone swarms are the future, China may be winning. 

The Birds

           Over the past two decades, China’s People’s Liberation Army has transformed itself from a large but antiquated force into a capable, modern military. According to a recent RAND report, China’s technology and operational proficiency still lag behind those of the United States, but it has rapidly narrowed the gap. Moreover, China enjoys the advantage of proximity in most plausible conflict scenarios. China’s geographical advantage in Southeast Asia would likely neutralize many U.S. military strengths. A war over Taiwan or contested islands will not play like the Ludendorff offensive. To maintain the edge, the U.S. military must prepare for the conflicts of the future, rather than those of the past. 

Russian Military Successes and Diplomatic Victory in Syria

   The fate of Syria will be partly decided in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is a former Soviet republic and still under the influence of Moscow as a symbol of a world that is changing. It is indeed in Astana, the capital build from scratch in the middle of the steppe by the authoritarian President Nursultan Nazarbayev, that the negotiations  were open today, January 23, under the sponsorship of Russia, Turkey and, Iran, the unprecedented negotiations between the Damascus regime and the Armed Syrian Opposition.

  Relentlessly hammered and with disdain for months, the expression "supposedly moderate opposition" has disappeared from the Russian diplomatic parlance on Syria. This shift is not just semantic. Since the reconquest by the regime of the rebels’ districts of eastern Aleppo, the Kremlin still seems determined to transform these military successes, which remain fragile, into diplomatic victory. And for this, the presence of the Syrian opposition and its armed wing is necessary.

The sponsors of these discussions are the countries involved in the battlefield, supporters of the regime, such as Russia or Iran, or the opposition, such as Turkey. "The format of the" troika "to date has demonstrated its relevance”, said the Chief Russian Diplomat during his presentation in December 20, 2016 in Moscow, noting that these countries have "a real impact on the ground ".  It is the Kremlin's key idea to arrive at a lasting cease-fire, a conditional aspect for the resolution of the conflict. After Astana, the negotiation should continue in Geneva under the leadership of the United Nations, in February 8, 2017.

  Other major players such as the United States, the European Union, and Saudi Arabia were not invited. However, the United States could be present in Geneva and this should be a sign of the Kremlin vis-à-vis the new administration of Donald Trump. If Trump does send an envoy to Geneva next month, it would be the first official contact in which the Americans and the Russians can discuss in a more effective way to fight against terrorism in Syria. The presence of Turkey is seen as the rapprochement between Moscow and Ankara and represents an opportunity for Turkey and Iran to confirm their role of new regional powers.

   The purposes of the Astana’s negotiations include the consolidation and the establishment of a long lasting cease-fire signed last year after a Russian-Turkish agreement signed by nine rebel organizations. Another purpose is related to the full participation of fighters on the ground and, finally, the agreement on the drafting of a constitution and the process of a referendum and elections.

The Russians have agreed to place the United Nations at the center of the game and change the draft resolution they had initially submitted on December 31, 2016 to the Security Council. The final text of the 2336 resolution on Syria was amended by France, the UK, and the U.S. It sets out a detailed roadmap of the crisis with the establishment of a ceasefire and the opening of negotiations under the aegis of the United Nations for a political transition, new constitution and general elections.

 There are still many divergences in terms of the fate of Bashar Al-Assad. While the United States, the Europeans, the Syrian opposition and, the Arab countries want Assad to leave either immediately or at the end of the transitional period, Russia in contrast is doing whatever it will take as long as there is no other alternative to ensure the survival of the current Syrian regime. And the Iranians are even more uncompromising in their support for the dictator. Hopefully, the parties in Astana will agree on sustainable solutions by tomorrow, January 24, 2017. If not, let’s pray that it will happen on the shores of Lake Geneva in order to end the suffering of the Syrian people.

Will President Trump and Secretary James Mattis get along?

Will  President Trump and Secretary James Mattis get along?

Out of all of President Trump’s picks for top cabinet positions, James Mattis’ nomination for Secretary of Defense seems to be the one to have received the least amount of scrutiny. In fact, Mr. Mattis was confirmed, almost unanimously by the Senate (98-1) on Friday January 20, couple of hours after Mr Trump took the oath of office. Other nominations  for important cabinet positions such as that of Betsy DeVos for Education or Rex Tillerson for State have yet lead to confirmation as several questions continue to be raised  about the postulants' suitability for the job. This is not to suggest General Mattis is exempt of reproach. After all, he has been on the record making comments about Islam that were not necessarily appropriate.

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General Mattis' new role as defense secretary has of course implications as far as the new administration’s vision for the U.S. military is concerned. President Trump has indicated throughout the campaign season that he intends to pursue an isolationist policy. He has questioned the need to have an important military alliance such as NATO, going as far as qualifying it of obsolete. Furthermore, he has made a series of comments that seemed to indicate that he intends to pursue a rapprochement with Russia. The NATO argument is unprecedented given the US long standing policy of ensuring the security, peace and prosperity of Europe.

 It is therefore difficult to understand why President Trump chose General Mattis as defense secretary whose track record does not seem to align with an isolationist military policy. Whereas President Trump would prefer to take a step back and allow Russian to influence things in Syria, General Mattis is more likely to advocate for a bigger US military role in the conflict. Most importantly, a rapprochement with Russia is not an idea shared by the newly sworn Secretary of defense, as evidenced by comments made during his Senate confirmation hearing. When asked about the possibility of seeking closer ties with Russia, Mattis simply indicated that the United States has several times  tried to engage positively with Russia in the past and that there is “a relatively short list of successes in that regard”. 

Given Mr Trump and General Mattis' apparent different viewpoints on critical issues in American military policy, there is the potential for tensions between the two men. In any case, President Trump's authoritarian tendencies is more likely to lead to the dismissal of General Mattis à la General MacArthur if tensions were to arise. However, in doing so, the president's political capital could take a hit.