Meet Two Master Strategists
Dr. Gary Straub Meadow@StMatthews Thanksgiving- 2020
When 60 Minutes featured H.H. McMasters, I was struck by his rare combination of intellect/experience as National Security Advisor, Army General, w/ a PhD in History. He offered overview of US positions world-wide, but I found his research sources nearly as intriguing as his analysis. He pointed me to soldier/scholar David Kilcullen’s evocative pivot away from conventional war tactics toward principles in liminal warfare.
Liminal warfare is a method hostile nations use to counter US dominance thru asymmetrical warfare; premised on the ambiguity of blurred lines and undefined edges. Ambiguity allows ‘wiggle room’ to be aggressive in subtle subterranean ways. Then, once challenged— respond with deny/delay. Its all about plausible deniability, while gathering intelligence to probe enemy weakness & time responses. Methods test & push, but then retreat & repeat. Attributable evidence becomes illusive. Instead of battling the big dragons of Russia and China, we wrestle a writhing ball of smaller nation’s snakes. If we’re unsure about being bitten, these strikes may prove fatal. Maybe we could be at war and never know it! Gunboat diplomacy and poke the bear tactics keep the pot boiling. Winning is overrated if your foe is on hyper-alert and enmeshed in constant chaos. Accusations are often light on culpable evidence and rely on “faith-based” attribution. Kinda: “we can’t quite prove, but this is exactly the kind of thing our enemy would do!” Killcullen identifies 4 threshold levels: clandestine activity, covert ops, ambiguous action, and overt conflict. Who needs to”win a war” when, by the time the op is detected, the goal is already achieved? An enemy might even engage us simultaneously on all 4 levels! What if we are not trained to detect the contest on all four levels?
Example: sneaky real estate ops. A Chinese shell corp owns Hotel Del on Coronado Beach, w/in sight of our Navy’s highest concentration of ship/sub intel. Other incursions: Rosslea Hall—Glasgow, Australia’s Port Darwin, US camp—Djibouti. Watch as Chinese Silk Road/Belt Initiatives scalp unsuspecting nations of mineral resources while their real estate loans sour into default. Don’t forget South China Sea, where The Hague International Sea Court ruled against Chinese takeover of islands—to NO avail!
Prior to Berlin Wall and 9/11, US foreign policy recognized two major enemies: China/Russia. Each engaged a trademark combat style. Russian style is “in your face/what’s your problem?” China prefers to lull us w/ nod & smile, then quickly strike to undermine & deny. 9/11 changed our responses; as our focus shifted to outright war on terror. We bought Dragon-killing weapons for each joust, only to discover—the dragons disappeared—were replaced by deadly snakes. Our tactics switched to snake killing.
Our Dragons remain the 2 state-based threats above. Meanwhile, snakes—smaller non-state enemies— sneak and strike. When US symmetrical tactics collided with snakes’ asymmetrical warfare, we got flummoxed and played “whack-a-mole.” Think: Wiley E. Coyote meets a nest of roadrunners. Colin Powell: “why have a superb military power if we can’t use it?” Why swat gnats w/ hydrogen bombs? Cold War weapons designed for Dragons do not efficiently eradicate smaller enemy snakes. Killcullen thinks that shock/awe may even teach our enemies how not to fight us. If snake strategies are our enemy’s forte, let’s note 15 hot-spots better met with a speed/flex/adaptive approach: 1) Chinese constructing container port in Columbia 2) Chinese hardware/advisors across Africa.
3) Horn of Africa trade dominated by illegal Russian cargo ops. 4) Chinese easily flim-flam nations of precious metals needed for cell phones. 5) Assad supported by Russian army. 6) Russia reopens defunct Cuba intel post—93 mi off FL Keys.7) North Korean “advisors” in Venezuela. 8) China deploys 1st ever aircraft carrier. 9) Constant South China Sea skirmishes. 10) Foreign cyber attacks multiply. 11) Defiant North Korean missile launches. 12) Corruption galore w/ China’s Road & Belt Initiative. 13) Benghazi. 14) ISIS Caliphate arises. 15) No redline reinforcement for Iranian gas attacks. We’ve defined all these as dangerous incidents of irregular, asymmetric warfare
Chinese focus on asymmetrical tactics include psychological, public opinion, and law fare. (Add crime & cyber warfare too). Traditional defense proves inadequate, so Kilcullen offers a limited menu of long-term options:
- Doubling Down. Press American exceptionalism —crank up what is already not working. Note: the more we spend on conventional warfare the less advantage it buys.With a debt of 22 trillion, US willingness to pay for carrying the world shrinks. We maintain 800 bases in 80 countries while allies still do not pay a fair share.
- Embracing the Suck. Accept inevitable decline and ‘lead from behind’. No more long engagements/large footprint. Reduce unequal burden-sharing. Rebalance. Pivot.
3) Going Byzantine. Enemies endured for eons by mastery of the long game against our democracy. Disengage long-term occupations. Translate battle advantage into a better peace by leveraging strategic successes. Pay closer attention to enemy vulnerabilities.
A critical aspect of US resilience: learning fr enemies. Use strict & disciplined engagement—know when to engage. Secure liberty/prosperity for all by core principles: human rights, rule of law, dignity/prosperity, freedom of speech, rationalism, innovation, scientific discovery, and compassion toward the well-being of average citizens.
At first, I thought Kilcullen just took his dog for a walk. I got blindsided by his brilliant metaphor: ebb tide. We are living in the outgoing tide of the western way of war. China is shifting to a competition model and Russia comes roaring back. Both are simultaneously implementing asymmetrical strikes blended with old war ways. Our leaders are preoccupied playing partisan politics while subtle enemies attack from within: rebirth of tribalism, populism, nationalism, and identity politics. With internal and external thresholds in constant flux, sustaining democracy now requires careful and intense situational awareness while honing our detection thresholds. Our adversaries wreck havoc before we detect activity or even I.D. the players. We are not fighting dragons OR snakes— its ‘AND’ these days. Often BOTH…and simultaneously.
Kilcullen closes with a quote from pioneer British tank warfare: “the object of war is not simply victory, but a better peace.” Which raises two closing questions:
- Are we still stock-piling and practicing for a type of war no one gives anymore?
- How will we translate our victories into healthy peace/prosperity for all?
Excluding the World Wars, our battles may win us victory, but not nearly enough healthy prosperity to bless all. Do smarter wars make smarter peace? Hmmm…
