Previous IFPA-Fletcher Conferences

National Security for a New Era:
Focusing National Power

November 14-15, 2001
The Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center
Washington, D.C.

Panel 5

Dr. Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr.: (Inaudible) Panel 5, but if you would direct your attention at this time to the center screen above, we will have our opening video, which sets the stage for Panel V, which is focused, as you will see, on alliance and coalition operations. So, welcome back Session V.

Video narrator: Now, more than ever, our success in foreign policy will depend on our ability to mobilize the support of our friends and allies. The current security environment demands that we achieve an effective international unity of effort.

Brigadier General John S. Brown: Working in a coalition environment is very complex and it does require a great deal of careful thought and movement, but it's certainly not unprecedented in our experience

Dr. John P. White There's no question that building coalitions is complicated. It's a lot of give and take. The people come from different perspectives and also with different capabilities. But we do know for sure that in the complicated, interconnected world we cannot go alone

Dean Joseph Nye: I think that what we're seeing is a much more complex domain of world politics in which if you train just for the traditional diplomacy of State-to-State relations, or traditional military roles, then you will find that you're not dealing with this new type of world.

General Barry R. McCaffrey: We're going to have to commit ourselves to coalition operations as the way to defend the American people. If you don't understand that, you're living in the wrong century.

Narrator: Coalitions provide political and military support by our nation, but they require a high level of negotiation, cooperation, and coordination among the 8 partners. Challenging, especially when the partners have both shared and distinct national interests.

General Anthony Zinni: Like any coalitions where we had Greeks and Turks together, it's important to be sensitive that there is some inherent friction that could come into a coalition, and to ensure those don't become issues, don't become trigger points.

Dr, Roger Porter: It would be unwise for us to think of a single coalition in which everyone agreed with everyone else on everything. Indeed, what we would likely find ourselves doing is building a whole host of coalitions to deal with particular problems and that will involve particular nations.

Ambassador Marc Grossman: Some countries will want to do this overtly; some countries will want to do it covertly; some will want to be up or down in the coalition.

Narrator: As we build coalitions, we will have to answer many difficult questions, some even before we can join forces. Can nations come to agreements on nuclear deterrence policy now that more of us have nuclear capabilities? Can we work together despite differences in our cultures? Can we fight together despite gaps between our military technologies?

General McCaffrey: The military will be a lesser component of broader national strategy which you try and build multinational coalitions and try and exercise diplomatic and economic leverage. You try and compel compliance with international law.

Narrator: The coalition now funding the war on global terrorism exemplifies the complexities of achieving unity of effort among diverse nations, but also with potential for success. Despite other conflicting needs and interests, these countries are finding common ground, relying on each other to defeat a common threat.

Dr. Pfaltzgraff: Again, welcome to Panel Session 5. Our concluding panel discussion today will focus on alliance coalition issues. How do we achieve unity of effort?

We have structured this panel to address a series of very important issues that face us and our coalition and alliance partners in the early 21st century. They include a discussion of NATO as an organizational framework for a combined action. What are the lessons of recent operations in Southeastern Europe, indeed, the last decade of NATO experience in the post-cold war era? What are the implications of lessons in Southeastern Europe for the war against terrorism, for example? Are there any lessons that can be drawn? We hope also in this panel to address the significance of the RMA, the Revolution in Military Affairs, for alliance cooperation between the United States and its alliance coalition partners. Is there an emerging technology gap that will hinder our allied cooperation in the years ahead?

Another issue for this panel includes the implications of proliferation for our ability to design deterrence concepts for the United States acting alone or in concert with its allies and coalition partners in this new world of the 21st century. We also have in this panel an opportunity to begin to think about some of the lessons that are beginning to emerge and the issues that we will need to address that can be drawn from the tragic events of September 11, for future alliance coalition operations.

So, with those brief introductory comments and urging that you read the Charter for this panel, which is set forth in the program, I would ask each of the panel members now to come out and be seated so that we can proceed. I am going to introduce each of the members as they speak. First on the list will be General Montgomery Meigs, United States Army. General Meigs is Commanding General, U.S. Army Europe and Seventh Army, Heidelberg, Germany. This is a position that he assumed in 1998. He also served as Commander of the Multinational Stabilization Force in Bosnia, Herzegovina, beginning in October, 1998, and therefore, he is especially able to talk to us about some of these alliance issues that are on our agenda with respect to Southeastern Europe. He has held a variety of appointments in his distinguished military career. I'll only mention one or two of them: Commander First Squadron, First Artillery, Cavalry Regiment; Strategic Planner on the Joint Staff in Washington, D.C. and on and on the list would go. I would also mention to you that he is a Ph.D. in History. He received a Ph.D. in History from the University of Wisconsin in 1982, so this is no mean achievement. It is with great pleasure that I welcome General Montgomery Meigs to this meeting and look forward to his presentation. Monty, the floor is yours.

General Montgomery Meigs: Bob, thank you. Thanks for the opportunity to be part of this very impressive series of presentations, and thank you and all of the people in the back rooms and out in the reception areas that do all the work to make this such a great event.

Coalition warfare, or multinational operations, the term we now seem to be using in our recent contingency operations, remains, as always, fiendishly difficult. Domestic politics of individual members, their unique diplomatic and strategic interests, personalities of subordinate Commanders, the military cultures of the contingents all create frictions that complicate and frustrate the lives of the Commanders who lead multinational formations.

In the last 60 years, some rules of the road have been hammered out in hard experience; they're worth revisiting here as the structure for our discussions. Multinational, political consensus on a clearly-defined strategic objective provides the ambient necessary condition for unity of military effort in a coalition. The complexity of the task of the Commander of multinational formation depends on the strength and shared sense of danger and a common purpose confronting a threat.

Clearly stated and well-understood strategic objectives help to reduce the ambiguities the Commander must confront. This shared consensus at political level provides the basic foundation of action of coalition by doing several things. It buffers the self-interest generated by the domestic politics of coalition members. It supplies the support from national capitals, sensed by the senior military representative of national contingent in the multinational force. And as Secretary of State Powell noted about Desert Storm, "Every country is sovereign and wants to know how its forces will be used."

National commanders in the formation feel this pressure directly, from the specified language of their national instructions and from the informal direction from the leaders, as well as from their own personal loyalties and experiences. The coalition Commander subordinates must also report home and report home often. Only to the extent their orders and guidance allow, can they accept decisions on their own authority. Only to the extent they are trusted by their own senior military leadership can they expect to justify to their own masters decisions taken in the coalition that carry operational risks requiring explanation to their national political leaders.

This same relation between clarity of collective intent and operational initiative applies to the coalition Commander himself. If his own nation is not completely committed to the goals of the coalition, if it is a reluctant leader, if it is squeamish about the tactical risks that must be accepted in the campaign to attain operational success, he has problems on several levels. As the senior officer of his nation, he remains responsible in the court of public and political opinion back home, for the perceived successes and failures of his own national force. As the Commander of the coalitions combine military force, he is responsible to the political leadership of the coalition for the results achieved by all elements, individually and collectively. He cannot often ask the units from one coalition member to take risks toward common goals that are higher than the risks that he is allowed by his own nation to assign to units that wear his cap badge. The perception that a Commander's own contingent may not be pulling in the traces as hard as some of the others can quickly undermine morale and cohesion.

Multinational Commanders must constantly balance three factors against military necessity. They are the pressures from individual nations, the pressure from his own nation, and instructions of the organization sponsoring the coalition. Occasionally, one's own nation will forward guidance not in concert with what the Commander sees as the best way forward, or ideas he knows he cannot sell to the coalition. In these times, his relationship with his own national leaders determines how far he can lean into the wind to argue for the case of the coalition. At times, individual nations will ask for special considerations. His support at higher multinational headquarters is critical to deflect these requests. And at other times, coalition headquarters will generate pressures that he knows are contrary to what his own or another nation can accept.

On those issues, subtle pressure on the political leadership of the coalition by his national leaders and those of other sympathetic nations, alerted by their Commanders in his formation, are indispensable. Let me be clear at this point that I'm not talking about duly constituted orders. Within specified and implied intent, Commanders must follow the orders they receive. They also must adhere to the limits imposed by binding national instruction. But before orders are published, during the process within the coalition in which courses of action are being developed, the Commander must be able to make his views known. Further, he must have the political skill, the military competence and clout to make these views tell.

The combination of shared purpose, political will and credibility of the Commander defines the degree to which he can be effective in that role. Let me give an historical example to highlight the issue. In the summer of 1944, after the invasion of Normandy, General Eisenhower planned for a second invasion into Southern France, Anvil, later renamed Dragoon. The Prime Minister and his Commander in the Mediterranean, General Wilson, opposed this course of action. Eisenhower knew that to bring the necessary logistic weight and additional divisions from the U.S. into the offensive across France into Europe, the allies needed another large port. He also believed an attack up the Rhone Valley would draw forces away from the thrust toward Germany and the German defense of Italy.

The British argued for either of two options: reinforce the main effort out of the Normandy beachhead with a second parallel thrust from the French Atlantic coast; or, unhinge the Germans in Italy with an attack around their flank threatening the Balkans Triest and eventually Austria. The debate lasted from June to mid-August, with the Prime Minister finally complaining to Franklin Roosevelt that the Americans were being arbitrary, and that the invasion in Southern France risked ruin of our great affairs in the Mediterranean. And we take it hard that this should be demanded of us.

On 9 August, Ike met Churchill in what he called one of the most difficult sessions he had during the entire war. Churchill was adamant, as only Churchill could be. Ike stood his ground, advising the Prime Minister that if there were political reasons for a campaign in the Balkans, Churchill should take the issue up with the President. Obviously, Ike knew he had solid backing in Washington. The support of Marshall, King, and Hopkins was crucial to him. Not only was he careful about husbanding his case with Marshall, he had a unique ability to argue his points with his allies without alienating them, a quality in which Ike remains an exemplar from all - for all of us students of this business. Had there not been a clear intent and shared resolve to defeat the Axis powers, and had not Eisenhower retained the support and confidence of his national leaders, and in the final analysis of Churchill himself, he would have lost his case, or having won, might have seen his allies reluctant to come onboard at the last minute.

In short, if we want to set conditions that enable a military success of a multinational coalition, we must ensure the mission is clear and understood and well supported by all the participants. In addition, we should ensure that the military Commander has the support and confidence of his national leaders, and that the other members of the coalition have properly accepted him. But at this point, we have only stated one of the necessary conditions of success, one of the additional sufficient conditions that derive from the role of the Commander himself and how he conducts his management of military affairs.

Given the best of multinational support and clarity of strategic intent, a Commander can still make a mess of things. What then must he do to enhance the chances of success? What personal qualities must he exhibit? He must have political skill to balance the competing military and political pressures. He must gain quickly an understanding of the operational idiosyncrasies of his allies. He must always show complete impartiality. And finally, to the point of mind-numbing frustration and then beyond, he must have patience and more, and then more patience, and then in those dark hours of embarrassment and frustration, a profound will to do what is right.

I've already described Eisenhower's ability to marshal support from his own capital to ensure he preserved the strategic initiative and the courses of action upon which he believed success depended. We can find a number of military figures who successfully led coalitions. They include Marlborough, Wellington Slim, Mountbatten, and many others. All had the ability to gain and keep the respect of allied military leaders, and equally importantly, the loyalty of their troops. Other leaders like MacArthur and Stillwell had tremendous military ability, but either because they alienated their political and military leaders back home, or caused irreparable fissures within their multinational formation, they were removed.

Simply put, coalition leaders must have the political skills to garner support back home in their own national capital. They must have the human touch that allows them to gain the support of the leaders of the national contingents in their formation. And they must be good enough at the business of soldiering to exact loyalty from subordinates of whatever uniform and to execute a campaign that promises to win. The circumstances of MacArthur's relief by President Truman are well known. Stillwell would probably have been a terrific Army or Army Group Commander in the European theatre of operations. He was temperamentally unsuited to the vagaries of dealing with the national Chinese in coalition warfare, despite his great skill and character.

One must also understand the idiosyncrasies of the units assigned to the coalition. As I began my duties as Com SFOR in Bosnia, I noticed that one contingent generally expressed discomfort with orders that had some risks, or that interpreted Dayton in a newly-expressed aggressive manner. The question was in the verbs. As he got to know my unit Commander and the member of his Army on my personal staff, I began to understand the issue. In the case of his national law, if any plaintiff from Bosnia went to his home country and gained acceptance of a judge to apply jurisdiction, and then examine a legal complaint, that leader could be liable to a civil or criminal suit for decisions made and executed in good faith in Bosnia in ensuring compliance in Deyton.

My lawyer and I quickly adapted a procedure in which we accompanied orders with a written legal finding from my staff Judge Advocate, outlining how the order fell within the language of Deyton. In addition, we learned to keep the language of orders within semantic forms of the Deyton Agreement already accepted by Parliaments. Normal military terms would often get us in trouble unless we had screened them very carefully. In these ways, we removed concerns about personal legal liability and about political risk back home, but creating the proper environment meant moving quickly past one's frustration and an impulse to be critical, in seeing the problem from our subordinates' point of view. Once we addressed the hidden risks, there was never again a reluctance to act.

If I were to give any one piece of advice to a newly appointed multinational Commander about how he must conduct himself, it would be, never to say anything untoward about one of his contingents. Truly the walls have ears. General Eisenhower said it best when Lord Lewis Mountbatten, newly appointed to command the China/Burma/India theater asked for his advice. I quote, "Never permit any problem to be approached in your staff on a basis of national interest." To that I would add, never criticize or belittle a contingent, even in what seems to be the most private setting.

In addition, one must spend the time to address the concerns and advice of one's deputies and senior staff officers from other nations. Again, Ike's words say it best: "The thing you must strive for is the utmost in mutual respect and confidence among the group of seniors making up the allied command." Remember, once one gets agreement on a course of action with some risks that yet promises gains, these seniors must sell it to their own masters in their national capitals. They must also advise the coalition Commanders of problems in selling the option and the attainable middle ground. To do that enthusiastically, they must be confident in the Commander and his operational skill, and they must want the decision to work. This kind of confidence means that one must be convincing and competent. One's Allied subordinates must believe that if things go wrong, that he will - that the multinational Commander will shoulder the blame as his own. That he will do, in the public - will do so in the public domain, even if one of the national contingents caused the plan to go awry. In fact, it does not hurt if early in one's command there is a failure caused by a coalition member for which the Commander can take personal blame. His capital knows the game, as do the senior officers of the nation involved.

Finally, the other quality coalition Commanders must have is extreme patience. Marlborough provides one of the best examples. It is 1705. Marlborough had already campaigned successfully for several years, and in the previous year had won the decisive battle of Blendheim. He had just maneuvered the French Army into a disastrous position in Belgium between the Oich and Overish Rivers, his combined Dutch and English army was one-third larger than the French and had them pinned into a disadvantageous defensive posture.

But the conditions of Marlborough's command required that representatives of the Estate's General, the Dutch government, accompany the army. And they had final authority in the field over Marlborough's decisions. The Senior Dutch General Overkirk, agreed with Marlborough that the Army should attack the French immediately. But some of Overkirk's reluctant subordinates appealed to the so-called field deputies, who then had to give their approval before Marlborough could attack.

I'll let his words tell the story. This is his report back to London, his own government. "After a four days' march, I found the enemy encamped as I expected so that I thought we should have a very glorious day. But as the deputies would not consent without first consulting the Generals who were all against it, except Mr. Overkirk, we have been obliged to retire from the enemy. Notwithstanding, where we were at least one-third stronger than they, which I take to be very prejudicial to the common cause and scandalous for the Army and against all discipline." In a postscript in his parallel report to the Estate's General he added, "My heart is so full I cannot refrain from representing on this occasion to your High Mightiness' that I find myself here with far less authority than when I had the honor to command their troops last year in Germany." Marlborough was furious, frustrated, embarrassed. Yet, he persevered. He stayed in command and in 1708 won the battle of Ramillies and conquered Belgium for the coalition. He went on to win the battle of Oudenarde, and by 1710, had fought the French armies and their allies to a standstill.

In Bosnia, in December of 1998, SFOR began an operation against an organization with criminal links within Herzegovina and it backed into Amsterdam called the Renter Company. And General Shinseki will get a wide grin about this. With the help - because he's the one that started it - with the help of corrupt Bosnian and Croat secret police and hard-liner politicians Renter misappropriated Bosnian land and set up a market, a construction company, and a used car business - read that, stolen, in a reasonably important town called Stolitch .

In October of the next year, a very difficult trail with many fits and starts led us to Mostar. This trail included assaults on SFOR soldiers, evidence of war crimes, violent disruption of returns to Stolitch by Bosnian landowners, the murder of the Federation's Deputy Minister Interior, a Bosnian Croat, by leaders of his own faction, and an attempt to buy the Bosnian Croat leaders to manipulate the public shock and anger about the murder to damage the Federation government. Its final phase involved SFOR's occupation of the headquarters of the Bosnian Croat Intelligence Service and the headquarters of its money-laundering front in Mostar, and confiscation of records, computers, and evidence pursuant to further and successful investigation of the murder and indictment of the individuals that are accused.

I'm not suggesting in any way that this small operation resembled the significance of Marlborough's doings, but it did - did it ever require mind-numbing patience and again-and-again efforts to keep all the allied contingents on plan and to refocus the effort after setbacks. In short, if we want a multinational formation to have the best chance of success, we need to give it clear, strategic guidance and ensure that the member countries to the coalition understand the goal and support it in a way that will stand the parliamentary stresses in their governments, vice those in our own government with its fixed terms of office.

Coalitions must select a Commander who possesses convincing military competence and an ability to work sensitive political issues with his host nation with the coalition's sponsor and civilian entity, and with civilian - and with national capitals. He must be a quick learner with sensitivity to the political and cultural issues affecting his units. He must always enforce impartiality in his staff and must, in his own conduct, reflect total confidence in his subordinates and their units to the point of accepting their mistakes as his own and quietly taking the flak in public, I might add, sometimes stoically. Finally, in addition, he must have the patience of Job and the will to press on no matter what gets in the way. Thank you.

Dr. Pfaltzgraff: Thank you very much, General Meigs, for giving us the benefit of your operational experience, as well as your very impressive historical perspective, as much that we could discuss. This has been a very important contribution to our deliberations today.

I now turn to our second speaker, who is Admiral Joseph Prueher, United States Navy, Retired. Ambassador Prueher served as United States Ambassador to China from December 1999 until earlier this year. Before that assignment, he completed a 35-year career in the United States Navy. His final assignment was as Commander-in-Chief, United States Pacific Command, clearly - clearly, a command that requires a great deal of understanding of alliance and coalition issues and cooperation. I cannot fail to mention, however, that during his career in the United States Navy, Admiral Prueher flew over 5,500 hours in 52 types of aircraft with over 1,000 carrier landings. Think about that! So, it is with very great pleasure that I welcome Joe Prueher to our meeting today, and welcome him to the podium.

Admiral Joseph Prueher: Thank you very much, Bob. For those of us who are somewhat technically oriented, airplanes are nice; when you push it, they go in the direction you want, unlike coalitions. So, it's a - it's a good background to have on things that actually act the way you think they are. It's a great treat for me to be here today. And I see what the previous speakers have meant. You are sort of like a deer in the headlights up here. You can't see many faces. So, if you all are shaking your watches or something like that, make a big motion so we can all see it, and that'll be important.

I need to tell one quick story about Rick Shinseki, the main sponsor of this conference. We met when we were Senior O6s a few years back, and we were talking about the advantages that accrue to increased rank in the military services. And I was talking about on ships, you get a chance to, instead of living in the stacked bunks, you might get a stateroom, small, but have a single bunk. I said, "How does the Army go?" This was part of our culturalization exchange. He said, "Well, when you're in the Army and you get to be an O6, you get to sleep on the hood of the Jeep." So, I think that was - imagine, Rick, I think, has stepped out to do other stuff now, but he probably wouldn't mind sleeping on the hood of the Jeep instead of some of the other things he does these days too.

I would like to - I'm not going to give a series of stories here, but I would like to give a couple of examples. And one is a - has to do with a person who Monty mentioned, Lord Lewis Mountbatten, who, after World War II, was the Head of the British Mediterranean fleet. And at that time, he had a guest on what was a new flagship for him and he had a new communications suite on the flagship. He brought the guest into his - into his cabin and was explaining the advantages of this modern communication that he had, and he drew a comparison to one of his predecessors, Lord Nelson, on his flagship, Victory. And they happened to be anchored down south of Crete in the Mediterranean. And he talked about when Nelson wanted to communicate with London, he would write a message, he would hand it to his Orderly, they'd get it to a Courier, they'd row a boat ashore, ride horses across Crete, do some more boat work, horses or carriages through Europe, sail across the channel, horses to London. And he said, "And Nelson, under the best circumstances, would get a response back in about eight weeks." "And so," he said, "now, I have this great new modern capability. I've got a radio room just one deck up on the ship. When I want to communicate with London, write out a message, I hand it to my Orderly, he takes it up, it's instantly transmitted to London, and in about eight weeks, I get a message back." So, aside from being sort of an instructive story on a number of fronts when you think about it if you're a technology buff or anything else, one, we all appreciate it a little bit because of the - because of the cultural aspects of it.

The other part that it brings to mind is, we understand bureaucracies, and a point that both Dick Myers made and Gordon Adams made today, was made a couple of times yesterday, is before you can have coalitions, before you can have joint war fighting, before you can do these things at the lower levels where the rubber meets the road, you must have alignment at the top. That the bosses must agree that this is a good thing to do. Otherwise, coalition partners or joint war - joint war fighting partners cannot work together if their - if they have a boss that's pulling in one direction and you, as a Joint Commander, are pulling in another. So, I think this is something that we can - we can take away from this.

I would like to take a moment to - I don't want to do it in a - try not to do it in a boring way, but get a little bit of a backdrop where we can be sure of what our terms of reference are. Because this whole pitch, this whole meeting, which has been so well put together, is about focusing national power. Now, for those of you that took Political Science 101 many years ago, you had a book that listed elements of national power. It's critical stuff. And yeah, they talked about geography; they talked about natural resources; they talked about military; they talked about the quality of government. And there's a list of five or six, seven, eight elements of national power. I don't think we're necessarily talking about all of those things here when we we're talking about focusing national power. What the handouts have talked about, have talked about diplomatic, military, economic, and cultural.

I would quibble a little bit with that and I think it's useful to talk about that some. The Joint Forces Command- Tony talked about doing some mentoring work - uses a term called 'DIME'. They call it Diplomatic Information Military and Economic. Tom Friedman, who was here last year, wrote that great book, because it's easy to read, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, where he would talk about the political, military, economic issues and then he would add - and cultural - he would add environmental and technical. This is an arguable point. But I think the ones we should be talking about for the purpose of this discussion are, I would change 'diplomatic' to 'political' because diplomatic connotes diplomacy; it connotes overseas work. Political, I think, embraces that, but also embraces what Commanders must deal with in their own nations and the local politics, and that is very important. Domestic politics have a tremendous effect on how we can bring to bear the elements of national power. The military part I think we understand. That's traditional security. The economic part we understand, though we don't necessarily do it very well. And the fourth thing I think is useful to add in is information, and add that one in. So, if we talk about political, military, economic, and information, I think those are the elements of national power that we are largely - that we are largely talking about as we go forward here.

Now, I'm - one of the things that you're going to have to suffer with a little bit here with me today is, if you look in your program, I was supposed to be the Moderator, not a speaker today. I found out I was going to get to speak about 10:00 P.M. last night, and I was already past my useful conscious time by then. So, in the spectrum of prior preparation prevents particularly poor performance and the improvisation mode, I'm a little closer to the improvisation side today, but I think maybe I can contribute a little bit. I have spent, since about 1962, off and on, studying Sun Tzu fairly hard. My army advisors have told me that gives me about the qualifications of an average Army Major in knowledge of Sun Tzu. But, we quote Sun Tzu a lot. We were talking actually before the - before coming out here what a great Chinese phrase, which is a little bit attributed to Sun Tzu, of optimum conditions. And he talks about the "clouds are high and the Emperor is far away." I think we can all agree with that, particularly if you live here in Washington. But he was a - he was not a simple soldier. He was - he embodied a lot of the same principles that Clausewitz has, a lot of the bringing to bear the elements of national power. In China, in Sun Tzu's time, the great Admiral - in Chinese, Admiral and General are the same words, so it converts really nicely to Admiral - but the - he talked about the foremost quality of the - of the great General, I'll concede in this audience. But the - is that he wins the objectives of his nation without engaging in combat. Now, this is a sophisticated view because it does not mean that we are not - that the armies are not capable and immensely capable of engaging in combat or war fighting. But he said that is a squandering, usually, of the nation's resources in terms of time, in terms of money, in terms of lives, and other assets. So, if the great General can win the conflict without engaging in combat, that's the ultimate goal.

So, you can snooker your way into a victory, but you do, in this sense, if you are a General, you have to have either control or a strong influence over all these elements of national power. And so, this is going to get - or it gets now into the discussions of how much horsepower should Dick Myers have as Chairman? How much horsepower should CINCs have to bring these elements to bear. And it's a good - it's a good point. And as we look through - as we look at Sun Tzu and we look at what we're trying to do in this nation, you look at the various elements of national power, and we've talked about - Dick Myers talked about joint war fighting a bit - the ultimate interagency group is the Cabinet. And when you really want to talk about interagency things, you end up with a Cabinet meeting. And in the current administration, that occurs. They talk and work through things. If you take this mode of jointness, or interagency stuff together, the military is one part of that through Secretary Rumsfeld, in our case the Secretary of Defense, and Dick Myers. But the other elements all come together.

And so, how do you bring these things to bear? One of the things that is - if you can think - I don't have an answer to this, by the way - but you bring this interagency approach to solving problems. You bring it all the way down, and if - I know more about the military part - you bring it down to the military, or you bring it down to a country team in the case of the State Department at a well-functioning Embassy. Then you bring this interagency group approach all the way down to solving problems and it keeps you from stubbing your toe as often. It keeps you from having as many unintended consequences as you might otherwise have had.

So, it's incumbent - I already told this story about you Rick, sorry guys - excuse me the Chief of Staff - but the - so if you bring this all the way down, that's the goal we need to have. And the joint forces command is now talking about a JTA, a Joint Tactical Action, down at a very low level in the military, which will consider and have in mind these many things that we've been talking about today. I think that's important. Let me give you an example. In Asia, happened at CINC PAC - or happened not at CINC PAC but when I was there - where in 1997, the biggest crisis in Asia was an economic one. And it had security implications in a big way.

It started off with the baht crisis in Thailand in 1997, when their - when the baht just crashed. And the little tigers, the smaller nations in Asia, came tumbling down, and that was the start of the Asian economic crisis. Now, Thailand is not only a coalition partner of the United States; they're an ally. We have a formal treaty with Thailand. Thailand has given us access to their airbases, access to their real estate, in times when no one else would do it. And yet, their biggest problem in 1997 was an economic one and we ignored them. We paid no attention to it; we dropped the ball. In talking to Sandy Berger, the National Security Council, the Treasury was looking at U.S. problems; they were not looking at the international economic problems, and we dropped this ball. This is an example of what happens when you do not apply the trade of focusing international power in a sophisticated way.

Another point that I think has been brought home from the September 11th issues is that when you look at bringing to bear the elements of international power, the idea of traditional security undergirds the other ones. General Shinseki brought this up in his comments this morning when he talked about the confidence of the American people. Dick Myers brought this point up when he talked about the security issues in the United States. Lee Kwon Yu in Singapore, there's some great stories and I maybe will go into those later, but he talks about security being the oxygen for the economic engine of Asia. What you have is security, people feeling confident about themselves, that they can invest, that they can send their children to schools, that they will get a return on their investment, that their house is going to be there when they come home, those types of things. The fundamental security issues undergird the basic, stable conditions that allow people to do long-range planning for a business plan or something like that, that allow people to peacefully pursue prosperity.

So, as we look at the security in a sophisticated way - the political, the military, the economic, and the information part - we must not lose sight, I think particularly for those of us who work national security issues very closely, they're in uniform or out, we must not lose sight of the fact that traditional security, brought home to us in the most tragic way on 11 September, is the fundamental issue.

Now, let me shift gears a little bit and talk about what breeds the need for coalition? A common threat? A common fear? What makes coalitions stick together? Common goals and objectives. These are sort of buzzword terms, but when you have common values , shared values and shared cultures, it's much easier to make a coalition adhere and be a cohesive one, than it is trying to bring together coalition partners who have very different cultures and very different fundamental values.

An instance occurred in Hawaii when Jiang Zemin was making his visit to the United States, and after the Straits crisis in 1996, where we brought some aircraft carriers out there, one of the things we realized at PACOM is that we had communications with every nation in the theater. We could pick up the phone and talk to somebody, every nation, absent one, and that was China. So, crises were going to occur because we didn't - we didn't have communications. We set about a plan, which got critiqued in a lot of way, but to build up communications with China so that we would not miscalculate. Anyway, Jiang came to the U.S.; Hawaii was his first stop. We were out on the barge, going out to the Arizona Memorial, and he sort of put his finger in my chest and said, "What are you trying to do with the PLA?" You know, "How come you're hanging around with my guys?" type of thing. And he - he said a few other things too, which I won't relate. But the point, I said we were trying to build up a modicum of trust so that we don't miscalculate and we can solve issues between us. When you think about it, you can't solve any problems without a modicum of trust. You can't buy a car unless you really think the person is going to come through on their deal.

You've got to have some element of trust with the people you're dealing with. Monty brought this out in his presentation about coalition leaders. Jiang talked about the Chinese in the U.S. and he said, "Our countries are very different. We don't have trust because our cultures are different, and we don't understand each other. And not only that, we can't have understanding without communications." So, his point was, there needs to be a hierarchy of communications, of understanding the other culture, and then you can build the trust that is essential to starting to solve some of the problems that you might have.

Now, I would argue that, as you take - other than just being a story - as you take this point and talk about coalitions, that the real work for coalitions is done during pre-crisis time. If you've got a spectrum of time of, you know, relative peace to crisis, it's in the pre-crisis time when you build the foundations for these coalitions that are so important. If you're a Steven Covey fan, it's Quadrant 2 work. It's urgent - I mean, it's important, but it's not urgent. You do this important work when you've got time to have communications and you've got time to build.

That's what a CINCs theater engagement plan is about. It is about building these ties so that in times of stress, when the system gets stressed, you can build a coalition, you can come together, or maybe you can avoid the crisis. I think we have a CINCs theater engagement plan. What we really need is this interagency group-type of engagement plan that comes down and that would flow.

Now, I'm about to conclude because I've gone past my 'use by' date here, but the - I've got a couple of sort of gratuitous points I'd like to make, having to do with 9/11. Is that, the United States, from a vantage point of having lived overseas both in Europe and in Asia a good bit, is seen as a confident, competent, basically an honest broker and a leader. And this is a - this is a wonderful situation to be in. What we - what we need to do is lose the hubris that has - that has taken its place in the rhetoric that the United States has used.

I think that is one possible side effect that will be positive from 9/11, is it's - it's been a very humbling and tragic experience for the United States. And as we continue to keep a firm eye on our national interests, if we go forward to other nations with the - with confidence, with competence, with the issues of leadership, but not the "we've got the power; we've got the money; we've got the technology; let's do it our way," I think these coalitions are going to work much better in the future.

Like Wes Clark mentioned yesterday, what I see overseas is a lot of people saying, "We really - we really like you all on an individual basis, but, you know, as a nation, it doesn't appear that you care much about us." And I think this will make the coalitions work better. The other part as we look at coalitions, and this gets a little bit to Tony Zinni's points that he made, which I - Tony's one of the most effective military leaders and articulate military leaders I know, and direct military leaders I know.

But the role of the military in this focusing of national power, the military doesn't solve the fundamental problems. The military creates room and time and space for issues to get resolved. And so, what we - when we look at things that have long-range, underlying issues, we need to realize that the military piece of this, which is very important, goes in and creates some time, it creates some temporary stability, and it creates some space. But into that time and space have to come those who are represented by these other elements of national power to help solve these problems.

I could not possibly agree more with the comments that have been made earlier, and Gordon Adams made it and Frank Carlucci made that at the earlier pitch, about we need a strong State Department. We need a magnificent State Department, and I think they're on the right track, but they have been under-funded a long time. And the attrition of what they've been able to do over time has been something tragic for our country. And we - we need those things to work very well.

The other part that is in addition to the room, space, time argument is the idea of going into a mission, a coalition, or a task, with the idea of an exit strategy. Now, I forget who talked about exit strategy, but I tended to agree with what they - what they said. When you start defining your exit strategy too well, or you won't go in unless you've got one, that's - that's not - I don't believe that's where we want to be. However, we do need to define the task sufficiently so we can at least tell when it's over. Under what conditions can we say we're through? And it may be that that answer is 'never'. Like this war on terrorism, when - I don't - I don't foresee, in our lifetimes in this audience of being able to say that's complete. It will always be there. Maybe it will diminish. We will get a big bite out of it, but it will always be there. And when you think about history, not long history, but you think about World War II and the Marshall Plan, we went into World War I, we fought everybody, at the end of the war we dusted off our hands, we went home, turned our swords into plowshares, and 15 years later, bang, we're at it again in a major way. At the end of World War II, we started with the Marshall Plan, which is still going and has bred both coalition friends, allies, shared values. It's been a wonderful thing. At the end of Korea, the war didn't stop, but we stayed and we preserved the peace. In Japan, the military stayed and preserved the peace. I do not think in history this is the natural condition of things for that to happen, for the military to take on this chore, but I think it has, almost by default, but the issue of we're still there may be true.

But I think what we need to argue, instead of the military still being there, is the United States interests being there with our elements of national power in a supportive way with the coalitions. And maybe that supportive way is providing enough sustenance to another coalition or the other government can be self-sustaining is the way we need to go. So I think it's very - it's beguiling, in a way, to think about time to leave, but we need to think more in terms of what are the conditions under which we can remove some 6 of this. When are these things going to be over?

I've - I've - you've caught my improvisation a good several points, not too much on coalition building, but I think these are some useful thoughts. And some of them are arguable as well, and I look forward to questions later. Thanks a lot.

Dr. Pfaltzgraff: Thank you very much, Joe, for showing and giving us insights into the need to integrate the various instruments of power, and of course, recalling for us the work of Sun Tzu.

Our next speaker ought to feel very much at home by this time in the panel because over the last few minutes, if you've listened carefully, you know that we have heard the name 'Nelson,' 'Mountbatten,' 'Slim,' 'Churchill,' and, of course, his great ancestor, 'Marlborough' mentioned. And we began the panel with a Commanding General in Europe, whose first name is Montgomery and goes by the name 'Monty.' So I hope, John, you feel suitably at home. We arranged this all for you here as our closest ally.

It is with a great pleasure, therefore, that I welcome Air Vice Marshall John Thompson. He is presently the Defense Attaché of the United Kingdom, based here in Washington D.C. He is a Harrier pilot. He has had extensive coalition experience. He spent 10 years of his military career in Germany. He has had NATO experience also in Bosnia. And I might add, just to complete the circle here, that he served as British Advisor to General Zinni at CENTCOM. So, welcome, John, we're delighted to have you with us.

John Thompson: Thank you very much indeed gentleman, and thank you, General Shinseki, for accepting me, an Air Force Officer, to stand in for the Ambassador.

Certainly, I feel in this Army setting, I'm barely qualified, but I have done a course where, for those of you who don't know, the British Army, and we heard some of the history, is very keen on its regimental system. And the regiments and the history of the regiments is very much a part of how the British Army works. When the Chief of General Staff opened the first - gave the first address to the course I was on, he asked a rhetorical question, which was, "Why do we have an Army?" I'm afraid I answered it by saying, "Is it to preserve the regimental system?" So my Army credentials are not that good. I'm also, as you can see from that, not particularly good as a diplomat.

And - but my subject today is "Focusing International Power to Achieve a Common Cause." And really, I want to talk about operational diplomacy amongst allies. I take Admiral Prueher's point about politics and diplomacy, but as you know, as a servicing - serving Officer, I can't possibly talk about politics, so I'll stick to diplomacy and use it in its - in its broadest sense as I go through.

I do have some minor qualifications for doing this, and I've served twice in unusual jobs. Once was in Zaghreb when I was for four months working as a Liaison Officer between Admiral Leighton Smith, who was CINC South , and General Bertram Janvier , who was a French General running (Inaudible). And at that time, there was always a British Officer, and it was usually Air Force, who was put between the sailor, the American sailor and the French Army officer, and I don't think anybody else could have done it but a Brit. I still carry some of the scars. I then worked, and I know somebody in this room has seen me in a suit, working in Sarajevo where I worked for Carl Bildt as one of his military advisors on the civil side of the Dayton process. And again, there, persuading people the difference between mission creep and mission accomplishment from a slightly different perspective, again, left some scars, which I remember.

The 11th of September shook the kaleidoscope, not just in the United States and Central Asia, but in the configuration of foreign policy around the world. As the Prime Minister has said, "The outrages committed that day were perpetrated against the whole world." The international response bears testament to that. The initial outpouring of shock and sympathy was coupled with an understanding that the threat of international terrorism affects us all.

As a result, the U.S. in the days after 11 September found that a wide range of countries was ready and willing to join the bold coalition. And in a masterful display of operational diplomacy, the Administration moved quickly to pull it together. In some countries, the response was not so surprising, but no less welcome for that. NATO was first off the blocks with the invocation of Article V, followed by specific offers of military support by individual allies. Much attention has been paid to the British and their contribution. But other - other allies - France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Turkey-and those farther a field - Australia, New Zealand - have also followed up their offers with concrete - followed up with offers of concrete military support.

If before 11 September there were still any skeptics around on either side of the Atlantic who doubted the value of the NATO alliance, this display - this instant display of solidarity must have silenced them for good. But as President Bush made clear from the outset, the coalition - or rather, the coalitions, to fight international terrorism will need to be multifaceted, and we've heard some of the facets mentioned today, we begin to draw on the full range of international instruments, not just military. Groupings, such as the EU, the G8, have also been mobilized to take on key aspects of the fight, closing off, for example, the sources of terrorists' financing and denying terrorists safe haven.

The U.S. has also wisely recognized the essential role of the United Nations in countering terrorism. Global body - as the global body, the United Nations not only bestows international legitimacy, but can also provide a forum for drawing up and enforcing measures to tackle terrorist networks. The UK welcomes the extent to which the U.S. has made full use of these multinational bodies to promote its counter-terrorist strategy. It has long been clear to us that in this globalized, interlocking world, no country, not even the United States, can hope to act alone in combating the range of transnational threats confronting open democratic societies - terrorism, of course, but also, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, international crime, international narcotics networks, and disease, where, as we've seen in the case of disease here in Washington, has been a close connection with disease and bioterrorism.

But what has been particularly remarkable and very welcome, has been the proactive fashion in which the Administration has responded to what the Prime Minister has described as the vigorous shake of the kaleidoscope of international relations, which September 11th brought on. There's clearly a number of examples which fall into this category, but indeed, I can't possibly name them all. But two, Pakistan and Russia, are worth mentioning, both for the impact they have had so far and for the potential that exists to extend cooperation against terrorism into other areas. I won't say much about Pakistan, other than to observe that the future of their counter-terrorist campaign, the presence and support to Pakistan in this international coalition is absolutely vital. As for Russia, the Crawford Summit is living proof of the distance which the United States and the Russian relationship has traveled. As well as the prospect of a new, strategic framework, there is now a tremendous potential to forge a new and more substantial partnership with NATO and Russia.

So, 11th of September and its aftermath have demonstrated vividly both the readiness and capacity of the overwhelming majority of countries around the world to work together to combat terrorism, and the opportunities this unprecedented support offers to tackle other global threats cooperatively. The leadership of the United States reassurance so far has been admirable. Looking ahead, the challenge will be to sustain the coalition-building efforts. The United States can continue to expect strong support so long as it finds ways to involve those extending help. By the same token, it cannot afford to spurn those offers. Going it alone is simply not an option. Thank you.

Dr. Pfaltzgraff: Thank you very much, John, for pointing us in the direction of understanding more fully the need for coalitions to be multifaceted, where to draw upon all of the elements of national power and for bringing to bear your experience and expertise.

As our final speaker, we now have Dr. Keith Payne. Keith Payne, who has been a friend of mine for many, many years, is President and Director of Research at the National Institute for Public Policy and an adjunct Professor in the International Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. He pursues not only a very active career in the policy community, but also he is active in the academic setting. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Comparative Strategy. He has authored many, many articles on deterrence and on strategy, and in particular, books recently on deterrence in the second nuclear age and peacekeeping in the nuclear age. These are all wonderful publications, many of which I use in my classes at the Fletcher School.

So, it is with great pleasure that I welcome Dr. Payne, Keith Payne, as our concluding speaker in this session this morning. Keith.

Dr. Keith Payne: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here, and thank you for the introduction, and let me add my congratulations, Bob, to you for a first-class conference. I'm going to try and keep my remarks fairly brief so that we can maintain a schedule here. But let me just take a few minutes to address a question that is of increasing importance, including to coalition warfare. And that's to look at the trend that appears to be emerging towards the increasing lethality of relatively small groups, and to examine what that might mean for deterrence and coalition warfare.

The increasing lethality of small groups has taken on a greater pertinence since September 11th, as we all know. But it actually was a very important emerging question, even before then. This trend of the increasing lethality of small groups is a function, both of the increasing lethality of weapons that are available to smaller and smaller groups, and the increasing population density of urban areas. Now, there are several seminal works discussing this trend. I'd recommend them to you. One is Dr. Kathleen Bailey's path-breaking '91 book called The Doomsday Weapons in the Hands of Many; and Yale Professor, Martin Shubik's, 1997 article that's entitled "Terrorism, Technology, and the Socioeconomics of Death." These are shocking titles, but they're meant to be wakeup calls for this community to the emergence of a very new and dangerous trend. And this trend, as I noted, is the dramatic reduction in the cost, the organization, and the number of participants required to inflict immense casualties, particularly on advanced, civil societies. Professor Shubik offers in his article that I mentioned a quasi-numeric graph, which I show here with permission. That's not it. There it is.

Now, this is a Political Science graph, which usually means that the numbers involved are for show only. But Professor Shubik has provided an unusual Political Science graph that takes numbers seriously and has something actually behind them. His graph suggests - let me just summarize it - for thousands of years, small groups in a single operation, typically could inflict maximum casualties measured in the high hundreds. But as the chart suggests, in the near future, relatively small groups, with limited organization and resources, may be capable of inflicting unprecedented levels of casualties in the hundreds of thousands and possibly the millions.

Now, this point doesn't ignore the fact that in the past large, organized and well-disciplined groups at relatively high costs could inflict mass casualties. In the 55 BC, for example, Caesar's legions efficiently and totally annihilated the Usipites and the Tencteri Germanic tribes. And the Mongol invasions under Ghengis Khan probably led to the death of between eight percent and 12 percent of the earth's population. But even with these kinds of - these types of past examples of mass casualties, a real revolution in military affairs appears to be in the making, as illustrated by Professor Shubik, and this revolution stems from this trend toward the capability of small groups, at relatively low cost, over a - over a relatively short period of time, to inflict casualties at levels many times higher than has been possible in the past.

The main instrument for this, at least as we see it now, will be biological weapons, but as the war against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban has demonstrated, nuclear weapons may at least become part of this concern sooner than many of us thought possible. I'd prefer not to take a lot of time either critiquing or defending this proposition that mass casualties - the capability -the capability to inflict mass casualties is coming into a smaller and smaller - come to smaller and smaller groups.
Rather, let me just ask you to suspend any possible disbelief and let's explore, very briefly, some of the deterrence implications of this trend. There are at least three, and I'm going to summarize these very quickly, but these are the three most important, I believe, implications of this trend towards greater and greater lethality being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, at least three significant implications when we consider western deterrence policy for the future.

First, because in Dr. Bailey's words, "Doomsday weapons will be in the hands of many," the reliable, predictable functioning of deterrence will become much more important for the United States and our allies. Why? Because in the past, if we in the U.S. failed to deter, we were powerful enough and far away enough from most opponents to be relatively safe from catastrophic consequences. Historically, we have failed to practice deterrence and coercion effectively many times, and we have survived to tell about it. In the future, we may be less fortunate. Even throughout the cold war, only the Soviet Union could - only the Soviet Union could threaten us with massive casualties over a very short period of time, and because of the consequences of that capability, we devoted enormous resources to deterring the Soviet Union, and hopefully, predictably deterring it.

In the future, as increasing numbers of States and even terror networks acquire nuclear and biological weapons, we will need to deter an entire spectrum of opponents across a wide range of contingencies. Deterrence will need to work with the same reliability, the same predictability we hoped for in the cold war, because a single failure could lead to hundreds of thousands, even millions, of casualties. In short - in short, in the future, a single failure of deterrence may be intolerable, and that's a standard of effectiveness that has never been achieved in the past. Unfortunately, at the same time that the functioning of deterrence must be more reliable, the establishment of predictable policies of deterrence are going to become much more difficult; they will become much more difficult.

It's wrong to think that deterrence will be easier in the post-cold war period because the Soviet Union is gone. In fact, predictable policies of deterrence will be much more difficult to establish. Why? Because to deter reliably across a broad spectrum of possible opponents and contingencies, will require detailed information about, and familiarity with, a spectrum, a broad spectrum of opponents and potential opponents. Absolutely critical questions for deterrence in each case will include, for example, what has to be held at risk for deterrence to work? How can deterrence, threats, and conditions be communicated reliably? To whom? And how determined will the opponent be under what conditions? Answering these types of questions will be crucial to any predictable functioning of deterrence. Deterrence isn't like men's socks. One size is not going to fit all.

I'm reminded of what we now know about the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. At that time, Fidel Castro and Che Guevera both urged the Soviet leadership to use the nuclear weapons. They were willing, according to their own words, to become martyrs and for Cuba to be martyred. The Vice Premier of the Soviet Union at the time, Mikoyan, responded to Fidel Castro, and said, "We see your willingness to die beautifully, but we're not interested in dying beautifully." In the Cold War, we had the relatively easy task of trying to address these types of questions and establish a reliable policy of deterrence against only one opponent. In the future, there may be many opponents, and the answers to these critical questions will not be easy to come by. In some cases, competent answers will not be possible. As a result, the predictable, reliable functioning of deterrence will be problematic.

Finally, the military capabilities necessary to support deterrence across a wide range of opponents and contingencies will involve considerable uncertainty, and we will need the broadest possible spectrum of force. We no longer have the luxury of structuring our forces according to the deterrence requirements of a single opponent who we know fairly well. We will need a wide spectrum of capabilities and the agility to adapt our deterrence threats and policies to meet many different possible contingencies, a whole spectrum of contingencies, including the unknown. The PSYOP as a measure of deterrence is a luxury of the past. Flexibility and adaptability will become the keys to deterrence in the future.