Peace and War: The Space Between
Peace and War: The Space Between by Nadia Schadlow, War on the Rocks
President Obama’s commitment to reducing America’s reliance on the military instrument of power is well-known. It has been a constant theme of his presidency – from his first presidential campaign through his major speech on foreign policy at West Point earlier this year. It is therefore paradoxical that the administration’s foreign policy outlook and operational style have made use of the military instrument almost unavoidable. By failing to understand that the space between war and peace is not an empty one – but a landscape churning with political, economic, and security competitions that require constant attention – American foreign policy risks being reduced to a reactive and tactical emphasis on the military instrument by default…
This is probably the most important and succinct critique of American national security decision-making:
QUOTE: The tactical mindset that dominates national security decision-making prioritizes military means over political ends and confuses activity (such as the bombing of enemy positions) with progress. Because the use of military force is not connected to operational plans for subsequent political consolidation, the United States vacates the space between war and peace. And because they cannot match American military power directly, it is in this space — battlegrounds of perception, coercion, mass atrocity — that America’s enemies and adversaries prefer to operate. END QUOTE
Thinking tactically is not limited to the military. We need to be able to achieve balance and coherency among ends, ways, and means. That is the art of “doing strategy.” This provides a good description why we need to think strategically vice tactically in national security decision making.
QUOTE Finally, this tactical mindset provides an explanation for the apparent failure to appreciate how to leverage military force for strategic ends. This view leads to an under-appreciation of its broader deterrent value and the role that military forces can play in shaping security environments and consolidating tactical gains to ensure progress toward policy goals. Military forces – strong land forces especially – provide reassurance and tangible presence of American commitment. One of the key insights of the recently released National Defense Panel report was to make the important point that powerful U.S. military capabilities can shape events and provide options that may, by their mere existence, deter others from taking actions that require a U.S. military response. They help to establish the conditions to allow U.S. diplomats and policymakers to engage in that space between peace and war. END QUOTE
From the linked article:
So, assisting a violent regime change is something between Peace and War?
If anyone tried to assist in regime change against the American government, would that be an act of war?
So….proxy warfare is something we Americans do during peacetime, and SF Phase Zero is simply shaping the environment..
Just ‘fess up. It’s all war, all the time….
*By the way, I’m sure that little scenario would have worked. Just like regime change in Iraq kept all those jihadis out.
Duplicate.
Edited and expanded upon:
Let me address this idea that (1) a tactical mindset (2) dominates national security decision-making by (3) prioritizing military means over political ends, thereby, (4) confusing “activity” (such as bombings of enemy positions) with progress.
First in this analysis, I believe, we must articulate “political ends,” which might, for variety’s sake, be described as our nation’s enduring goal of “modernizing” (along modern western lines) the non/less-modern states and societies; first those within our own country and then those throughout the world.
Next, let us look to history to confirm these suspicions; wherein, it appears that our military forces were, indeed, used as a/the primary means/method by which the United States set about transforming outlying states and societies more along modern western political, economic and social lines (some of these transformations, of course, still being in the rather early and tentative stages).
Historical examples here might be:
a. In the 19th Century, the significant use of our military forces — for state and societal transformation purposes — in the American West and in the American South.
b. In the 20th Century, the significant use of our military forces — for state and societal transformation purposes:
1. In Germany and Japan (during and following World War II). And
2. Re: the Soviet Union and China (during, and increasingly now after, the Cold War).
In each of these historical instances, might we say that the use of our military force was — generally speaking and re: state and societal transformation — directly connected to operational plans for subsequent political consolidation?
Yet, somehow today, we are unable to see our military forces being used in this same enduring (and historically accurate?) light.
This, giving rise to suggestions that, due to our unenthusiastic and inadequate application of our military forces, we have, somehow, (1) abandoned the space between war and peace and (2) compromised our enduring and historical national security objective (outlined by me above).
We might, I suggest, wish to look at this another way; this being:
a. We (obviously) have not changed our overriding political objective — of transforming “different” states and societies more along modern western lines. (In this regard, see Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, etc.)
b. Nor have we “abandoned the space between war and peace.”
c. Rather what we have done — of late — is attempt to achieve our enduring and historical foreign policy objective (state and societal transformation) via different ways and different means, to wit:
1. With “diplomacy” and “development” in the lead. And
2. With “defense” now only bringing up the rear. (As opposed to the reverse way that we did these things until recently.)
By using these such “instruments of power” in this different order and in this different manner, does this mean that we have (1) abandoned the space between war and peace and (2) abandoned our historical political objective?
I think, in both of these instances, the answer to these questions is a resounding “NO.”
To sum up:
What we are witnessing today would only appear to be:
a. The application of the well-announced re-ordering of the use of our “instruments of power” (diplomacy and development then defense — instead of — defense in the lead). And
b. The results, thus far, of this attempt at using these ways and means in this different order/manner.
Thus, “limited bombing of enemy positions” to be seen, not so much from the “tactical unconnected to strategy” perspective, or re: the “abandoning the space between war and peace” charge but, rather, from the perspective of our new “defense in the rear” foreign policy strategic approach?
Mankind has long struggled with the concept of nothingness, and “zero” is the object we wedge into that void. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-the-origin-of-zer/
Kind of like the algebraic use of “x” in an equation that fills the gaps unaddressed by our current understanding of the facts until the critical fact can ultimately be derived.
For the past 12 years (much longer really) the US has applied assumed values for the variables unsupported by facts in our response to 9/11, and have come over time to believe those assumptions to have turned into facts – even when the reality of events around us suggest the opposite is more likely true.
Our government as a whole has misunderstood the problems we face and over-employed the military in hot pursuit of the symptoms of those problems in a naïve belief that somehow that could make the problems themselves disappear. Instead those problems have grown stronger, more distributed and more resilient to these symptomatic efforts – as have the symptoms themselves.
We have called peace “war” to generate the authorities and rationale necessary to pursue this line of illogic, and it has not worked. Sure, “we have not been attacked,” but as Napoleon sagely once commented “never interrupt your opponent when he is making a mistake.”
Of all of our governmental organizations the one perhaps the most uncomfortable with nothingness is the military. For a military with nothing to do is a military in need of serious down-sizing so that it does not rob too mightily from everything else a government must do.
We have over-engaged, and it has not worked. Now, as we prepare to move forward, we have somehow captured the strategic lesson that our future success will come from over-engagement as well. I find that a difficult proposition to support with clear eyes and unbiased mind.
Certainly there is work for aspect of our military to do in peace to help prevent, deter and mitigate any future war. But this is peace all the same, not some phase 0 preamble to a coming conflict. Such prophesies tend to fulfill themselves when pursued aggressively enough. Why tempt the fates?
Our Strategic Naval and Air assets have a critical role to play. Yet we mortgage the future on the F35. Foreign armies are only welcome when greater threats loom large. Thus the role for a large army presence in Western Europe during the Cold War stand off. There is little to justify much of a foreign army presence today. Sure Russia reasonably presses back at our own pressing of NATO into it first, but there is little threat of a major Russian offensive. It simply isn’t in there interests. Frankly, overly expanding NATO is not in our interest either. At a certain level we should thank Russia for reminding us of that fact prior to our creating an irreconcilable situation.
Building Partner Capacity has become our battle cry for phase 0 engagements, as if we were some reincarnation of the British Empire, raising foreign forces to carry the brunt of our future wars. But where has capacity building borne the promised fruit? In Iraq? Afghanistan? Both are abject failures given the time, cost and promise applied. But where we have focused more on developing our own understanding of some place and the people who live there; where we have nurtured true and enduring relationships between individuals and institutions – these are the places where we have had influence to shape at low cost and low provocation events favorable for our national interests, and those of the partner or allied nation as well.
I’m just saying we can do better. In fact, we must do better, and waging peace as war and encumbering it with phase 0 “logic” is not the likely path to better.
This is a good conversation.
If there is such a thing as war, why can’t there be such a thing as peace? This is another civilian-military culture clash, isn’t it, especially for those involved in the more “shadow wars” aspect of military activity. From that perspective, it probably is “all war all the time,” but I think Robert makes a good point. How does a military, especially one taught to be active during the Cold War and GWOT, think about peace? So too for civilian agencies bulked up during the process?