Risky Business

There is no nation on Earth which can win a stand-up fight against the US, even on their home territory, assuming that nuclear weapons are not used. China would make us bleed from sheer numbers. N. Korea would make us bleed from numbers and terrain. Britain or Israel would make us bleed from competence. Anyone else would be a fairly low-casualty win (at least based on the size of the task) for the US. The US enjoys an amazing superiority in doctrine, technology, numbers, and industrial base over every other nation on Earth. Some can match us in one or another of those areas, but no other nation can match us in all of them.

This asymmetry between our hard power and everyone else's has led to new concepts in warfare by everyone else, either to try to gain some measure of global power or simply to defend themselves. For the Frankenreich (as Porphyrogenitus calls the French-German-Belgian group of nations), the strategy appears to be to emphasize soft power; that is to say, culture and nuance (if you are kind) or sneering condescension (if you're not). The underlying point is to take advantage of our desire to be liked, by using alliances (NATO, for instance) and international organizations (the UN, for example) as methods of binding us via the threat of disapprobation. (Of course, they also have to pass laws forcing French TV stations to show a minimum amount of French-produced programming, or they'd show almost exclusively American fare.)

Al Qaeda, of course, and the nations which support terrorism in general, have adopted, writ large, the Palestinian strategy of making war on civilians, rather than the military. Of course, as events have shown, this strategy only works if the US military doesn't come to get you. Non-state armed groups still depend upon states to house them, fund them and provide them with cover, equipment and people. Taking out the Taliban has removed Al Qaeda's best location to plan, train and recuperate. The current war against Iraq will remove financial support, as well as a source of diplomatic cover and such necessary gear as weapons and explosives.

Other nations also provide support to Al Qaeda and related groups. These include Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia. I have not yet worked out Syria's strategy, though it may simply be to take advantage of the threat they pose to Israel to scare us into not attacking them. Certainly Syria is offering real support to Hezbollah and other terrorist groups, and political support to Iraq. Saudi Arabia seems to be attempting to play both sides, funding and supporting terrorism while co-operating in fighting terrorism when they must, and retrenching when they can, and loosening up politically when it is expedient, and cracking down again when they can. Iran, though, seems to have developed an activist strategy: infiltration of agents after a US conquest of Iraq, to destabilize the country and make our occupation costly and long. North Korea has opted to obtain nuclear weapons, and other nations will almost certainly attempt the same thing. (Iran is apparently trying.) The most frightening thing about that strategy is that North Korea is crazy enough that they may supply nuclear weapons to others.

Canada appears to have adopted the strategy of becoming irrelevant. On the other hand, Great Britain, Australia and the Eastern European countries have adopted the strategy of being on our side, and by doing so actually do have an influence on the way we behave.

I think that Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia will provide a test for the US. How far will we allow nations to go before we get irritated enough to attack them? I suspect that if Iran does go ahead with trying to instigate guerilla warfare against us in Iraq, while continuing their efforts to keep Afghanistan unstable, we will be at war with Iran within two years. This will happen even faster if Iran appears to be making real progress on obtaining nuclear arms. Saudi Arabia will probably be successful in keeping us from attacking them directly, but in the process they will have to liberalize somewhat, and also lower their level of support for terrorism (and in the course of this, they will need to lessen their attempts to export Wahabbism).

Syria is the real mystery to me. Certainly we have reason to go after them, if only because eliminating Syria's support for terrorism in Israel would make more likely a real possibility for peace in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. On the other hand, lacking a concrete and fairly immediate threat, Congress is unlikely to authorize the use of force against Syria. Although strategically Syria would be the best next target to eliminate the threat of terrorism against the US, Iran appears to be following the more risky strategy against us, and is therefore more likely to be our next target.

Posted by Jeff at April 5, 2003 12:30 AM | Link Cosmos