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Between Threats and War

Stanford University Press

Contents

Acknowledgments........................................................................................................viiAcronyms Used in This Book.............................................................................................xi1 Introduction.........................................................................................................12 Political Uses of Force and the Civilian-Military Split..............................................................173 Iraqi No-Fly Zones: 1991-2003........................................................................................284 Sudan and Afghanistan: August 20, 1998...............................................................................525 Yemen: November 3, 2002..............................................................................................736 Khurmal, Iraq: Summer 2002...........................................................................................917 Conclusion and Policy Recommendations................................................................................114Appendix I: Coding Cases and Descriptions: U.S. Discrete Military Operations, 1991 to June 1, 2009.....................127Appendix II: Non-Uses of U.S. Discrete Military Operations, 1991 to June 1, 2009.......................................155Notes..................................................................................................................159Index..................................................................................................................221

Chapter One

"The thesis, then, must be repeated: war is an act of force, and there is no logical limit to the application of that force." Major General Carl von Clausewitz, Prussian Army "[The use of force] doesn't have to be all or nothing. We should be able to use limited force in limited areas." Madeline Albright, U.S. Secretary of State "As soon as they tell me it is limited, it means they do not care whether you achieve a result or not. As soon as they me tell me 'surgical,' I head for the bunker." General Colin Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

WHEN CONFRONTED with a persistent foreign policy problem that threatens U.S. interests, one that cannot be adequately addressed through economic or political pressure, American policymakers routinely resort to using limited military force. Current and former government officials, foreign policy analysts, and citizens call for the limited use of force with the belief that it potentially can resolve the problem expediently and without resulting in unwanted U.S. military or local civilian casualties. Proponents of such operations are found across the entire political spectrum, and their proposals range from the practical to the satirical: from centrist former senior Pentagon and State Department officials proposing to bomb North Korean ballistic missiles poised to launch; to a liberal Washington Post columnist calling for a Predator missile strike to kill Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe-a scheme that was one-upped by a former diplomat and human rights advocate who suggested a "messy in the short run" invasion to oust Mugabe; to a White House spokesperson advocating the assassination of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein because "the cost of one bullet ... is substantially less" than the cost of war-a scheme echoed by a conservative pastor who himself encouraged the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez because "it's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war." Out of anger, empathy, or impatience with an ongoing foreign policy dilemma, advocates in and out of the U.S. government continually propose the subject of this book-Discrete Military Operations (DMOs).

America's use of limited military force and DMOs since the end of the Cold War is important because the United States continues to be the dominant international actor and because U.S. decisionmakers have increasingly turned to the use of limited force against other states or non-state actors to achieve their policy goals. In addition, rapid technological advances in the U.S. military's capacity to conduct precise strikes from a safe distance, and an international setting in which the United States faces a potentially open-ended threat from non-state terrorist networks, make it likely that the reliance on limited force will remain a persistent feature of U.S. foreign policy. Despite the rising significance of DMOs, however, it is unclear and understudied whether limited uses of force have succeeded at achieving their intended military and political objectives.

To clarify and illuminate recent U.S. limited uses of force, this book presents a new concept: "Discrete Military Operations." Here, DMOs are defined as a single or serial physical use of kinetic military force to achieve a defined military and political goal by inflicting casualties or causing destruction, without seeking to conquer an opposing army or to capture or control territory. DMOs usually consist of a single attack or series of sortie strikes, lasting just minutes, hours, or a few days. DMOs usually involve only one combat arm and one mode of attack directed against an adversary's military capabilities or infrastructure, regime or organizational assets, or key leadership. DMOs are also proscribed by strict rules of engagement to ensure that the intensity and scope of the strike does not exceed levels necessary to attempt to achieve the political objectives.

In investigating U.S. DMOs from 1991 through June 1, 2009, thirty-six in all, this book answers three basic questions: "Why were they used?" "Did they achieve their intended military and political objectives?" and "What variables determined their success or failure?" By broadly addressing these questions, the book evaluates the policy choices of U.S. officials over the past two decades and offers recommendations for how limited military force can be better used in the future. In addition, because U.S. uses of DMOs have now been a reality for four successive administrations, the insights and recommendations from this book are increasingly relevant to making predictions about the development of American grand strategy and military policy.

The available evidence demonstrates that U.S. DMOs achieved all of their military objectives just over half of the time, and all political objectives less than 6 percent of the time. However, this large gap between political goals and military outcomes is predictable: identifying and destroying a target is a far easier task than affecting the behavior of an adversary, or potential future adversaries, through the use of force. The primary political objectives can be summarized as any one, or a combination, of the following goals: punishment, or revenge, for an adversary's past behavior with no intention of altering future behavior; deterrence, to attempt to maintain the status quo by discouraging an adversary from initiating a specific action; and coercion, to attempt to compel a change in an adversary's future behavior. For punishment to succeed, the military objective of a DMO must be met: if you miss the target, your adversary experiences...