Confronting North Korea

One of the most critical foreign policy challenges 45 will face in the early days of his administration is what to do about the nuclear saber rattling that continues to emanate from North Korea.


Ringing in 2017 with a New Year’s Day address, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un told the world that the year ahead would see North Korea test an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), perhaps one capable of reaching the U.S. mainland.

Because North Korea denies most information to the outside world, no one knows for sure whether Kim’s claim is true or whether North Korea possesses the technological know-how to launch a missile on a suborbital trajectory and have it return to Earth on target. Last year, it tested its intermediate-range missile and failed seven out of eight times.

45 has signaled that he has a plan, but it remains under wraps. He did tweet that "North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching parts of the U.S. It won't happen!"

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Whether successful or not, an ICBM test by North Korea would be very much against U.S. interests, and 45 should act to counter it as early as possible. A turn to the basics of deterrence would be the path most likely to succeed.


For deterrence to be effective, the United States should make it clear to North Korea and its autocratic 32-year-old leader that no benefits will flow from an ICBM test — that it will neither empower the regime nor advance its nuclear capability.

When North Korea threatened ICBM development in 2006, former Defense secretary William Perry and Ashton Carter, who now holds the job, recommended that the United States destroy any test missile on its launch pad. That plan, however, was considered too escalatory and raised fears that North Korea might respond by firing artillery at U.S. allies in the region, such as South Korea or Japan.

Instead, 45 could announce a plan to use U.S. missile defenses to shoot down any test ICBM after its launch. Shooting down North Korea’s test vehicle would be a spectacular demonstration of the futility of the regime continuing to pursue its nuclear ambitions, and far less escalatory than dropping bombs on North Korea.

At the same time, the new administration could threaten to undermine the Kim regime’s power through new information operations if North Korea tests an ICBM. 45 also could pressure China to intervene, though  44 and 43 had similar hopes and China never delivered.

45 made clear his dissatisfaction with China’s failure to intervene in a recent tweet: "China has been taking out massive amounts of money and wealth from the U.S. in totally one-sided trade, but won't help with North Korea. Nice!"

But China might be more willing to intercede with North Korea if it knows that the United States is prepared to take major action against the Kim regime to stop its testing of ICBMs.

Kim has parallel goals in pursuing nuclear weapons. One is to distract his people from the many economic and social failures of the Kim family regime by showing the world that North Korea is a nuclear peer of the United States. The other is to demonstrate his ability to strike the USA with nuclear weapons. He hopes to thereby coerce U.S. agreement to a peace treaty with North Korea to end the 1950s Korean War, which could lead to an eventual withdrawal of U.S. forces from South Korea. Without U.S. forces in South Korea, Kim might be emboldened to pursue the only form of reunification he supports — North Korean conquest and absorption of South Korea.

Though a test is merely a test, if Kim orders enough of them during 2017, the North could succeed in resolving the many problems its missile program has encountered. That’s why a strong U.S. response is needed now.

There clearly are risks to any response that could provoke the mercurial Kim, but the risks of allowing North Korea to have a proven ICBM capable of carrying a nuclear payload are far greater. If even a single nuclear-armed North Korean ICBM were to strike a U.S. city, it could kill or seriously injure several hundred thousand Americans.

45 should be clear on how he would respond, not just to the threat of attack, but also to the tests that could make such an attack possible in the future. Kim should know that testing ICBMs will bring no benefits but will instead extract costs.

Year Of The Commando

Busy year for JSOC and similar cats


They could be found on the outskirts of Sirte, Libya, supporting local militia fighters, and in Mukalla, Yemen, backing troops from the United Arab Emirates.  At Saakow, a remote outpost in southern Somalia, they assisted local commandos in killing several members of the terror group al-Shabab. 

Around the cities of Jarabulus and Al-Rai in northern Syria, they partnered with both Turkish soldiers and Syrian militias, while also embedding with Kurdish YPG fighters and the Syrian Democratic Forces.  Across the border in Iraq, still others joined the fight to liberate the city of Mosul.  And in Afghanistan, they assisted indigenous forces in various missions, just as they have every year since 2001.

For America, 2016 may have been the year of the commando.  In one conflict zone after another across the northern tier of Africa and the Greater Middle East, U.S. Special Operations forces (SOF) waged their particular brand of low-profile warfare.  “Winning the current fight, including against the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and other areas where SOF is engaged in conflict and instability, is an immediate challenge,” the chief of U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), General Raymond Thomas, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last year.

SOCOM’s shadow wars against terror groups like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (also known as ISIL) may, ironically, be its most visible operations.  Shrouded in even more secrecy are its activities -- from counterinsurgency and counterdrug efforts to seemingly endless training and advising missions -- outside acknowledged conflict zones across the globe.  These are conducted with little fanfare, press coverage, or oversight in scores of nations every single day.

 From Albania to Uruguay, Algeria to Uzbekistan, America’s most elite forces -- Navy SEALs and Army Green Berets among them -- were deployed to 138 countries in 2016, according to figures supplied to TomDispatch by U.S. Special Operations Command.  This total, one of the highest of 44's era, typifies what has become the golden age of, in SOF-speak, the “gray zone” -- a phrase used to describe the murky twilight between war and peace. 

The coming year is likely to signal whether this era ends with 44 or continues under 45.

America’s most elite troops deployed to 138 nations in 2016, according to U.S. Special Operations Command.  The map above displays the locations of 132 of those countries; 129 locations (blue) were supplied by U.S. Special Operations Command; 3 locations (red) -- Syria, Yemen and Somalia -- were derived from open-source information. (Nick Turse)

26,171

Bombs Away! 

In 44's last year in office, the United States dropped 26,171 bombs in seven countries. This estimate is undoubtedly low, considering reliable data is only available for airstrikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya, and a single “strike,” according to the Pentagon’s definition, can involve multiple bombs or munitions. In 2016, the United States dropped 3,027 more bombs—and in one more country, Libya—than in 2015.

Most (24,287) were dropped in Iraq and Syria. This number is based on the percentage of total coalition airstrikes carried out in 2016 by the United States in Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR), the counter-Islamic State campaign. The Pentagon publishes a running count of bombs dropped by the United States and its partners, and we found data for 2016 using OIR public strike releases and this handy tool.

Using this data, in 2016, the United States conducted about 79 percent (5,904) of the coalition airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, which together total 7,473. Of the total 30,743 bombs that the coalition dropped, then, the United States dropped 24,287 (79 percent of 30,743).

To determine how many U.S. bombs were dropped on each Iraq and Syria, we looked at the percentage of total U.S. OIR airstrikes conducted in each country. They were nearly evenly split, with 49.8 percent (or 2,941 airstrikes) carried out in Iraq, and 50.2 percent (or 2,963 airstrikes) in Syria. Therefore, the number of bombs dropped were also nearly the same in the two countries (12,095 in Iraq; 12,192 in Syria).

Last year, the United States conducted approximately 67 percent of airstrikes in Iraq in 2016, and 96 percent of those in Syria.

Nothing Less Than Victory

Ever wonder why not once since the end of World War II has the United States of America—having the most powerful military in human history—won what Professor John David Lewis in Nothing Less Than Victory: Decisive Wars and the Lessons of History calls an “unambiguous military victory?” We did not win it in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq—and have not against our recent terrorist enemies.

Lewis examines the Greco-Persian and Theban wars, the Second Punic War, Aurelian's wars to reunify Rome, the American Civil War, and the Second World War. He considers successful examples of overwhelming force, such as the Greek mutilation of Xerxes' army and navy, the Theban-led invasion of the Spartan homeland, and Hannibal's attack against Italy--as well as failed tactics of defense, including Fabius's policy of delay, McClellan's retreat from Richmond, and Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler. Lewis shows that a war's endurance rests in each side's reasoning, moral purpose, and commitment to fight, and why an effectively aimed, well-planned, and quickly executed offense can end a conflict and create the conditions needed for long-term peace.

Positing what should be but isn’t generally understood, Lewis holds that “war and peace are the consequences of ideas—especially moral ideas—that can propel whole nations into bloody slaughter on behalf of a Fuhrer, a tribe, or a deity, or into peaceful coexistence under governments that defend the rights and liberties of their citizens.” (Italics added)

Professor Lewis quotes Lt. Gen. Harold L. George:

"The object of war is now and always has been, the overcoming of the hostile will to resist. The defeat of the enemy’s armed forces is not the object of war; the occupation of his territory is not the object of war. Each of these is merely a means to an end; and the end is overcoming his will to resist. When that will is broken, when that will disintegrates, then capitulation follows."

Consider the Korean War. To say the least, President Harry Truman and his political and military cronies had an agenda that was not the defeat of either the North Korean invaders or the Chinese intervenors. Far from it. Truman and company may have wanted a war, but they did not want to overcome the Communists’ will to resist. Tens of thousands of U.N., South Korean, and American troops, not to mention literally countless civilians, fell victim to their Cold War Machiavellian calculations.

Consider the Vietnam War. The United States could have crushed the North Vietnamese will to resist by using air power to destroy Hanoi, much as American bombers ultimately leveled much of Germany and Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. Instead, in Vietnam (just as in Korea) we countenanced enemy sanctuaries in China and ruled civilian and other targets off limits. Far from overcoming the Communists’ will to resist, we fought a defensive, not offensive, war.

Consider Afghanistan, where after supposedly eliminating al Qaeda, we took on the Taliban with rules of engagement that not only did not overcome their will to resist, but actually encouraged a guerilla war with, again, sanctuaries where their fighters would be reasonably safe. This time in Pakistan/Waziristan.

Consider Iraq. Even if the United States succeeded in removing Saddam and al Qaeda, whatever will to resist by their successors and freelance sectarian fighters we managed to suppress, our complete removal of troops stoked the embers of their will, and the situation there is predictably worse than when America pulled out.

Professor Lewis make the perceptive point that:

"An aggressive nation can be empowered far beyond its physical strength by a conclusion that its opponent does not have the will to fight . . . and then be demoralized and beaten by an offense that exposes the physical and moral bankruptcy of its position. Conversely, a powerful nation may give up if its people come to think that a war is unjust, their nation’s position is morally untenable, or its goal unclear or simply not worth it."

The “aggressive nations” of North Korea, China, and North Vietnam knew that the United States lacked the will for a sustained fight, and the Communists acted accordingly—achieving far more than their physical strength should have allowed. So, too, the irregulars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Sadly, none of them has been “demoralized and beaten by an offense that exposes the physical and moral bankruptcy of its position.”

Of whom might Professor Lewis be speaking when he observes that “a powerful nation may give up if its people come to think that a war is unjust, their nation’s position is morally untenable, or its goal unclear or simply not worth it.” Could it be the United States in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq?

These few remarks cannot begin to do justice to John David Lewis’s important and enlightening book. To prove his thesis, he presents examples from the ancient world, and then moves to modern times with extensive discussions of Sherman’s march through the South in 1864-65 (Chapter 5), British appeasement and the prelude to World War II from 1919 through 1939 (Chapter 6), and American victory over Japan 1945 (Chapter 7).

These chapters, alone, are worth the reader’s time.

The author’s conclusion—entitled “The lesson of the victories”—sums up his thesis that indispensable to victory in war is a clearly understood moral base that propels the fighting not to armistices, deadlocks, cease fires, and other inconclusive ends, but rather to clear-cut victory born of annihilation of the enemy’s will to resist.

One looks with difficulty for that moral base in America’s post-World War II conflicts, and with futility in today’s so-called War on Terrorism.

Top Threats Of 2017

While 2016 saw an increase in activity from known threats across the globe, the threats the country will face in 2017 are far less obvious.

Here are some of the potential issues to watch out for in 2017:

1. Cyber attacks from new and old enemies

The digital battlefield is no longer relegated to the shadows, and it is likely to become a premier security concern in 2017. Russia’s alleged hacking into various U.S. political institutions put the spotlight on cyber security. China and Iran also continue to develop cyber capabilities aimed at the U.S. Some cyber threats do not operate under a flag whatsoever. In response, the government is spending billions to bolster its cyber capabilities and is fostering partnerships with private entities in Silicon Valley to counter both state and non-state actors.
 

2. Al-Qaida takes over for ISIS

The Islamic State’s so-called caliphate is under siege on all fronts. The terrorist group’s capitals in both Iraq and Syria are on the verge of being retaken, and its land holdings are a fraction of what they were during its rise in 2014. The eventual downfall of the caliphate will leave behind thousands of jihadis and adherents across the world, all of which will be available to al-Qaida, ISIS’s chief rival.

Al-Qaida waited in the shadows while ISIS’s bravado stole the attention of the U.S. and international community. Meanwhile, it consolidated allies across the globe, particularly in Syria. Al-Qaida could easily regain its prominence as the world’s premier terrorist organization by absorbing ISIS’s remnants.


3. Iran’s dominance in the Middle East

The Islamic Republic of Iran has not wasted any time since it signed a nuclear deal with the U.S. and international community in 2015. It has a hand in every major conflict in the Middle East, including Syria, Yemen and, perhaps most importantly, Iraq.

Iranian naval vessels regularly harassed U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf throughout 2016. Iran also continues to hold its spot as the world’s foremost sponsor of terrorism. It is quite likely Iran will continue to pose a major threat to U.S. interests with its dominant position in the Middle East secured.

4. Increased Chinese provocations in South China sea

China spent the last several years building islands and engaging in a military build-up in South China sea. It has now moved on to more provocative actions, including the seizure of a U.S. submarine drone, the dangerous interception of a spy plane and the militarization of civilian fishing vessels. With its island building campaign more or less complete, its quite possible the Chinese will continue its aggression against the U.S. in the Pacific.

5. Russia’s military expansion, and not just in Europe

Russia’s military build-up along the NATO border in eastern Europe is well documented, and a legitimate cause for concern, but the Kremlin also has machinations elsewhere. Russia added a significant military presence in Syria, including a full upgrade to its naval base in Tartus, while fighting rebels in support of Bashar al-Assad. It also is expanding in the Arctic, where the military has sent some its most advanced units.

Navy's New Nine

Ahoy!


The fleet is scheduled to add nine new ships in 2017, a year that could kick off 45's plan to increase the fleet to 350 ships.

The new year may bring four additions to the troubled Littoral Combat Ship program, and the Navy anticipates commissioning the supercarrier Gerald R. Ford. There are two destroyers and two submarines slated to join the service as well.

The LCS program's four new ships will be the Gabrielle Giffords, Little Rock, Omaha and Sioux City, according to Naval Sea Systems Command. Two more destroyers, the John Finn and Rafael Peralta, are also in the mix to join the service.

Two Virginia-class attack submarines, the Washington and Colorado, are set to be commissioned in 2017. All commissioning dates are subject to change.

Meanwhile, the silent service is saying goodbye to the Los-Angeles class submarine San Francisco, which will become a moored training ship. Two more subs in that class, the Dallas and Buffalo, will face dismantlement. Decommissioning will occur after the boats go inactive throughout 2017.

44's Drone Legacy

44 will be known for drones.

As of Jan. 2016, 44 had authorized 506 known drone strikes, compared to the 50 strikes ordered by 43. The U.S. drone arsenal has expanded exponentially. In 2000 the military had some 50 drones. By 2012 that number had jumped to over 7,000 — a 140-fold increase in 12 years. Proponents of drone strikes, including the president, other public officials and members of the military, claim that drones are useful in a number of ways: they are less costly than their manned counterparts, are capable of eliminating terror groups and reduce civilian casualties.

But the evidence for these claims is shaky at best.


The most charitable evaluations find that drones save little over their manned counterparts. Others find, considering expensive accidents (at least 79, costing at least $1 million as of 2010), the need for multiple "ground pilots," and the cost of systems needed to operate the machines, drones cost just as much if not more than other weapons systems. Take the Global Hawk, one of the drones commonly used in the war on terror. This "cheap" drone costs nearly $200 million, nearly double the price of one F-35 fighter jet.

When it comes to disrupting terrorist groups, drones again fall short. In a study of more than 250 terrorist groups, researchers found that only 7 percent were eliminated with military force. The lion's share ceased operations by either joining the political process or when local law enforcement got involved.


An objective of counterterrorism is to eliminate "high-level fighters," the managers of terrorist groups. One study found that drones kill 12 times more low-level fighters than mid-to-high-level fighters. Another study found that only 2 percent of all drone casualties are high-level fighters. Moreover, terrorist groups often use drone strikes to recruit — so drones may actually be counterproductive!

This brings us to the topic of civilian casualties. CIA Director John Brennan says drones are like a surgical tool with "the ability with laser-like focus to eliminate the tumor called al Qaeda, while limiting damage to the tissue surrounding it."

But rather than conducting foreign policy with "surgical-like" precision, using drones may be more like performing open-heart surgery with a spoon. Researchers with the Center for Naval Analyses found that drone strikes were 10 times more deadly to civilians than strikes with manned aircraft. Another report disclosed that some 90 percent of people killed in "targeted killings" were not the intended targets. Government reports acknowledge only a few civilian casualties, but this is in part because the government defines "militant" as any military-aged male in a strike zone.

44 is aware of the dangerous legacy he will leave. In a recent interview, he expressed worry about the number of strikes and their "routineness." He expressed further concern that future presidents would be able to engage in perpetual covert wars via drones. What he failed to address, however, was the aforementioned drawbacks and how we might constrain use of the technology he has used so intensively.

Although 44 will leave office on Jan. 20, 2017, his drones are here to stay.