Networks, culture and narratives

This paper examines the difficulty the US armed forces face in shifting their focus from preparing for regular wars, in which combat is separated from civil society, to irregular wars, in which combat is integrated with civil society. It argues that the political context of contemporary irregular wars requires that the purpose and practice of Western forces be governed by liberal values. This is also the case with regular wars, to the extent that they occur, but it is the integration with civil society that makes the application of liberal values so challenging. It argues that this challenge becomes easier to meet when military operations are understood to contribute to the development of a compelling narrative about the likely course and consequence of a conflict, in which these values are shown to be respected. However, while it is vital that the employment of armed force remains sensitive at all times to the underlying political context and to the role of narratives in shaping this context, a key test of success will always be the defeat of the opposing forces. The application of this test in regular war remains straightforward; this is not the case with irregular war, which can be of long duration and contain frequent shifts in tempo and focus. The 'war on terror' has highlighted these issues and the paper concludes with suggestions for a strategic response. Notes 1 Actually, if you want to knock a body off balance the worst place to aim for is the centre of gravity. 2 US Department of Defense, Field Manual 100-5: Operations (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1982), vol. 2-1. 3 Anthony H. Cordesman and Abraham R. Wagner, The Lessons of Modern War, Vol. IV: The Gulf War (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996). 4 Barry D. Watts, 'Effects and Effectiveness', in Eliot A. Cohen, ed., Gulf War Air Power Survey, Vol. 2: Operations and Effects and Effectiveness (Washington DC: GPO, 1993), p. 363. 5 Important articles in defining the RMA were Andrew F. Krepinevich, 'Cavalry to Computer: The Pattern of Military Revolutions', The National Interest, no. 37, Fall 1994; William A. Owens, 'The Emerging System of Systems', US Naval Institute Proceedings, May 1995, pp. 36–39; and Eliot A. Cohen, 'A Revolution in Warfare', Foreign Affairs, vol. 75, no. 2, March/April 1996. For an analysis of the various theories see Colin S. Gray, Strategy for Chaos: Revolutions in Military Affairs and The Evidence of History (London: Frank Cass, 2002). 6 Robert H. Scales, Yellow Smoke: The Future of Land Warfare for America's Military (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003). 7 US Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review Report (Washington DC: Department of Defense, February 2006). The full text is available to download from: http://www.dod.gov/qdr/report/Report20060203.pdf. 8 Even compared with the National Defense Strategy document of March 2005, which set its foundations, there is a sharper focus on dealing with the new threats and less emphasis on conventional military operations. US Department of Defense, National Defense Strategy (Washington DC: Department of Defense, March 2005). The full text is available to download from: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Mar2005/d20050318nds1.pdf. For a critique of the QDR see Michèle A. Flournoy, 'Did the Pentagon Get the Quadrennial Defense Review Right?', The Washington Quarterly, vol. 29, no. 2, Spring 2006, pp. 67–84. 9 The White House, The National Security Strategy of the United States of America (Washington DC: The White House, September 2002). The full text is available to download from: http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.pdf. 10 An influential book in this regard was Alvin Toffler and Heidi Toffler, War and Anti-War: Survival at the Dawn of the 21st Century (New York: Little, Brown & Co., 1993). 11 Steven Metz, Armed Conflict in the 21st Century: the Information Revolution and Post-Modern Warfare (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2000). 12 'Information technology might provide a politically usable way to damage an enemy's national or commercial infrastructure badly enough to attain victory without having to first defeat fielded military forces'. Ibid. 13 John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, 'The Advent of Netwar: Analytic Background', Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, vol. 22, no. 3, July–September 1999. 14 Jerrold M. Post, Keven G. Ruby and Eric D. Shaw, 'From Car Bombs to Logic Bombs: The Growing Threat from Information Terrorism', Terrorism and Political Violence, vol. 12, no. 2, Summer 2000, pp. 102–3. 15 US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publication 3-13: Joint Doctrine for Information Operations (Washington DC: GPO, October 1998), p. GL-7. 16 William M. Arkin, 'Spiraling ahead: With the loss of its greatest champion, what's to become of transformation?', Armed Forces Journal, February 2006. For a full statement of Van Riper's views see 'Information Superiority': Statement before the Procurement Subcommittee and Research and Development Subcommittee of the House National Security Committee in Congress on 20 March 1998: http://www.comw.org/rma/fulltext/infosup.html. 17 Timothy L. Thomas, 'Kosovo and the Current Myth of Information Superiority', Parameters, vol. 30, no. 1, Spring 2000, pp. 13–29. 18 'At the structural level, network-centric warfare requires an operational architecture with three critical elements: sensor grids and transaction (or engagement) grids hosted by a high-quality information backplane. They are supported by value-adding command-and-control processes, many of which must be automated to get required speed.' Cebrowski and Garstka, 'Network-Centric Warfare: Its Origin and Future', US Naval Institute Proceedings, January 1998. 19 As developed by John Boyd. See Robert Coram, Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War (New York: Little, Brown & Co., 2002). 20 US Department of Defense Report to Congress, Network Centric Warfare (Washington DC: Department of Defense, July 2001), p. iv. 21 Major Norman Emery, US Army, Major Jason Werchan, US Air Force and Major Donald G. Mowles, US Air Force, 'Fighting Terrorism and Insurgency: Shaping the Information Environment', Military Review, January–February 2005, pp. 32–38. 22 Arquilla and Ronfeldt, eds, Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2001). The full text is available at: www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1382/. For a summary of their arguments, see Ronfeldt and Arquilla 'Networks, Netwars, and the Fight for the Future', First Monday, vol. 6, no. 10, October 2001: http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue6_10/ronfeldt/index.html. 23 William S. Lind, Colonel Keith Nightengale, Captain John F. Schmitt, Colonel Joseph W. Sutton and Lieutenant Colonel Gary I. Wilson, 'The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation', Marine Corps Gazette, October 1989, pp. 22–26; Lind, 'Understanding Fourth Generation War', Military Review, September–October 2004, pp. 12–16. This reports the findings of a study group which he convened at his house. 24 Hammes, 'War Evolves into the Fourth Generation', Contemporary Security Policy, vol. 26, no. 2, August 2005. This issue contains a number of critiques of the idea of fourth-generation warfare, including one by the author. For a full account of Hammes's ideas see The Sling And the Stone: On War in the 21st Century (St Paul, MN: Zenith Press, 2004). 25 Lind presents anything corrosive of the cultural foundations of a society as part of such a war. Cultural damage appeared as the product of deliberate and hostile moves by enemies, aided and abetted by naïve and wrong-thinking elements at home, rather than of broader and more diffuse social trends or economic imperatives. See Bill Berkowitz, 'A mighty Lind', September 2003. http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=15659. 26 Scales, 'Culture-Centric Warfare', US Naval Institute Proceedings, October 2004. 27 Arquilla and Ronfeldt (eds), Networks and Netwars. 28 See for example Robert Fulford, The Triumph of Narrative: Storytelling in the Age of Mass Culture (Toronto: Anansi, 1999); Jay Rosen, 'PressThink Basics: The Master Narrative in Journalism', September 2003. http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2003/09/08/basics_master.html. 29 Cohen, Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime (New York: The Free Press, 2002). 30 Freedman, 'War in Iraq: Selling the Threat', Survival, vol. 46, no. 2, Summer 2004, pp. 7–50. 31 Jay Rosen, 'Theoretical Foundations: Public Journalism as a Democratic Art', July 2002, http://www.imdp.org/artman/publish/printer_23.shtml. 32 William D. Casebeer and James A. Russell, 'Storytelling and Terrorism: Towards a Comprehensive "Counter-Narrative Strategy"', Strategic Insights, vol. IV, no. 3, March 2005.