Chapter Eight

Toward a Consensus Scenario

If you wish to live a life free from sorrow, think of what is going to happen as if it had already happened.  

                                                                                                                                                                               --Epictetus⁴⁹⁵




The most difficult challenge for any defense review is not the development of a future security environment assessment in itself. The most difficult challenge is to create a path of logic that leads to practical strategies and defense policies and suggests the force structure to implement them. Such an integrated path would be the translation of an inherently academic exercise of formulating alternative future assessments into a process that directs actions and produces effects in the actual, as opposed to the theoretical, international security environment. This is the point of such intensive defense reviews such as the QDR conducted in 1997, and is tough work indeed.

Thus, there is a degree of irony in the gentle chiding found in a recent future security environment scenario assessment effort: "Even in the U.S. Government's Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) process the emphasis is less on alternative futures in scenario development and more focused on the articulation of future force planning challenges."⁴⁹⁶ As suggested in earlier chapters, it may be that comprehensive defense reviews do not need to develop a separate--presumably novel--process for developing alternative future scenarios. Obviously, there is no lack of ongoing alternative futures projects from which to choose. Rather, comprehensive defense reviews need to be able to utilize the results of these competing, and sometimes conflicting projects in a way that provides for common conclusions and, at the same time, permits--better still, requires--the consideration of alternative views.

Constructing a Consensus Scenario

Having identified the current points of consensus appropriate for consideration in the QDR 2001 process, the task is to present these findings in a useful format. Constructing a consensus scenario that identifies a baseline common view of the expected future to create a logical starting point. This new baseline would replace the QDR 1997 assumptions about the future. However, QDR 1997 is included as a source so that the new baseline can be seen as much as a revision as a replacement.

Upon this new baseline can be added the contentious issues and potential outliers/wildcards. The alternative views of the dissenters can then be used as conceptual excursions from the baseline. By means of these excursions, policy decisions based on the consensus scenario can be evaluated in terms of their ability to hedge against alternative futures.

The table below provides the outline for a baseline consensus scenario that incorporates both the points of consensus and common aspects of some of the points of divergence.

The most critical military challenge to U.S. Armed Forces will be the readily identifiable military forces of one or more regional competitors. These regional competitors will not have the global power projection capabilities of the United States and will not be able mount militarily significant operations outside their own immediate regions against U.S. Armed Forces. U.S. control of the global commons of sea and international airspace will remain relatively secure.

But, because they cannot compete as a global military peer, regional competitors will seek to increase their chances of success by developing the capabilities to conduct limited attacks on the U.S. homeland and by excluding U.S. forces from their immediate region using antiaccess or area-denial strategies and systems.

In peacetime, their intent will be to create an appearance that the United States would not have the means or will to prevail in a conflict in their region, thus neutralizing potential allied support for U.S. actions. In wartime, their intent will be more to achieve a political settlement favorable to their objectives than to inflict a decisive military defeat on U.S. Armed Forces. The threat of severe American personnel casualties is increased through the possession and use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) against forward deployed U.S. forces and U.S. power projection forces entering the region, or the allied infrastructure that could support U.S. intervention. It will be increasingly difficult to defend overseas land bases from mass attacks. The likelihood of WMD use in these circumstances is high, although the weapons used are likely to be chemical or biological rather than nuclear.

WMD attacks would likely be focused on military forces or supporting infrastructure rather than U.S. or allied populations. This will not be the result of moral qualms, but rather an attempt to prevent the "Pearl Harbor" syndrome of an aroused United States (and/or ally) fighting for revenge. Another potential aspect of WMD use would be a nuclear-generated electromagnetic pulse (EMP) in an attempt to eliminate the U.S. advantage in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and command, control and computer (C³) systems.

As an adjunct to their antiaccess efforts, and in an attempt to sway U.S. public opinion toward a political settlement, the regional competitors will attempt to conduct a high level of information warfare. U.S. public opinion will be seen as a center of gravity. Information warfare--as well as overall antiaccess capabilities--will be facilitated by a continual diffusion of advanced military technologies throughout the world. This diffusion includes access to commercial imagery and communication via space systems.

However, the diffusion of military technology is not likely to cause a reduction in the U.S. advantage in military technology, which parallels overall U.S. economic and technological strengths. It is likely that major technological breakthroughs, generated through commercial efforts, will occur primarily in the United States or its economically developed allies. Regional competitors may be able to generate a temporary advantage in a particular technological niche, but the diffusion effect also ensures that such advantages will not hold for long. Likewise, the access to commercial satellite systems is not likely to continue during hostilities against the United States.

Increased military technology will also be sought by potential nonstate threats, such as terrorist groups, and in the myriad of civil conflicts erupting in an increasing number of failed states. Although not considered the primary mission (which will continue to be to "fight and win the Nation's wars," even as the anticipated operations of these wars change), military intervention against nonstate actors and in failed states will be expected missions for U.S Armed Forces. Such interventions or smaller-scale contingencies will continue to remain discretionary, and different political administrations may choose differing levels of involvement. However, some level of involvement appears inevitable and is to be anticipated. As part of these interventions (and possibly as part of regional war), some portion of U.S. Armed Forces will be expected to conduct operations in urban terrain and under chaotic conditions.

U.S. Armed Forces will be expected to utilize available assets in humanitarian assistance and in support for domestic civil authorities. Likewise, homeland defense--in response to asymmetric threats--will be an expanding mission. Evolving challenges in homeland defense will include limited ballistic missile attacks by rogue states and the potential use of chemical or biological weapons by terrorists. However, the majority of America's military will be required to remain organized to conduct power projection operations during regional conflicts, a posture conceptually similar to today.

Unlikely Events

If the above scenario represents a consensus view of the future for which U.S. military forces should be prepared, there is a corresponding image of which unlikely developments do not necessarily require extensive military preparations.

If an anti-U.S. military alliance or an ideology capable of propelling military conflict against Western-style democracy is not in the making, then the United States may be able to pursue the development of bilateral relations with potential rogue states by means of a unique blend of compellance and incentives. Without a major economic patron, states like Iraq will remain vulnerable to sanctions and embargo without an effective means of retaliation against U.S. interests. At the same time, globalization and the spread of market economics makes it even less likely that such rogue states would find powerful patrons. The U.S. may find it easier to use force against rogues in the future.

If war at sea and massed air-to-air engagements are unlikely, then there is considerable choice in the type of naval and air platforms that could be acquired in the future. Platforms could be optimized for other missions, or the United States could consider purchasing a high/low mix of capabilities, an acquisition strategy that was considered questionable in the latter periods of the Cold War. Likewise, the modernization of current systems--which has been done at the expense of early retirement of certain platforms--may be pursued at a more deliberate pace.

Events to Hedge Against

The effect of resource constraints on defense strategy always requires plans to identify--either implicitly or explicitly--those contingencies not planned for. Since the insurance aspect of defense planning requires hedges against the unexpected, it is natural for defense decisionmakers to forego, for as long as possible, divestiture of systems whose probability of use has faded. Changing conditions may make the recently divested capabilities of renewed importance. What some might view as unwarranted conservatism may be, in reality, a reasonable degree of prudence.

A potential solution for the divestiture problem may be the partial retention of legacy systems, or the development of significantly flexible or multipurpose replacements, that are specifically identified as hedges against an unlikely future. The first step is to identify exactly which alternative futures are worth hedging against. Obviously, the most critical criteria are the direct effects that alternative events would have on U.S. security. On the top of the list would be those events that hold the potential of a catastrophic defeat of the U.S. military. Following closely behind would be those alternative futures that would lead to an apparent long-term erosion in U.S. security.

Hedging strategies have limitations. First, of course, is that military means may not be the most appropriate response to some events. Other methods of hedging may not be appropriate elements for defense policy. From the two outliers identified, repeal of the restrictions on the direct use of the U.S. military in law enforcement is not a contingency that the Department of Defense could plan for under existing law (with the exception of the National Guard component in its state-assigned roles). DOD contingency planning for domestic law enforcement could also bring the American principle of military subordination to civilian authority into question.

Secondly, there are wildcard events that the U.S. military would not--under most circumstances--have the means to affect. A cascading environmental disaster may call for a military role in supporting domestic authority through the provision of transportation, construction, or security services. Military platforms could be useful for supporting civilian response teams to specific events, much like the use of naval vessels to stage clean-up crews for the Exxon Valdez oil spill off the Alaskan coast. However, there are no distinctly military capabilities that would seem particularly useful in preventing (rather than responding to) an environmental catastrophe. U.S. military consequence management teams--designed to respond to a WMD event--might be useful in environmental management, but they would not be optimized for such a mission. Obviously, good stewardship of resources by the Department of Defense--particularly the safe handling of nuclear material--could be seen as preventing the start of a cascading environmental disaster. Sources also suggest that U.S. space tracking systems and modified ballistic missiles could be used in preventing the collision of asteroids with the earth.⁴⁹⁷ However, overall preparations for a worldwide environmental disaster would seem outside the scope of practical military planning for the 2001-2025 period.

Likewise, preparing for worldwide economic collapse is outside the scope of practical military planning. If conflict were to occur as result of economic collapse, U.S. armed forces would obviously be called upon to engage the enemy, as they would in a conflict caused by any other means. But steps taken to directly shield the defense budget from economic downturn--for example, by investing operating funds in precious metals or other marketable commodities--have not previously been considered appropriate and would be politically questionable.⁴⁹⁸

However, there are a number of wildcard or unlikely events that a prudent defense plan would consider as contingencies. These include the events listed in the following table, which is based on a review of the points of divergence, the outliers, and wildcards, as well as the unlikely events identified above. These events to hedge against have three criteria in common: (1) they are events for which preparations in military planning or force structure are practicable, (2) if they occurred, their effects would be magnified by the expected trends identified by the consensus security environment, and (3) they hold the potential to create significant danger for the United States.

Likewise, hedging against a suddenly emerging world of warriors may require the maintenance of forces that might not prove useful in a previously information-warfare-dominated security environment.

A second form of hedging would be the development of adaptive systems, which could operate under unexpected conditions as well as perform optimally in anticipated missions. For example, hedging against the use of EMP weapons in an antiaccess strategy might require shielded sensors, nondigitized systems, or concepts of operations in which low-tech forces might be deployed--the equivalent of the apocryphal French colonial infantry.

The following table identifies some measures for hedging against the unanticipated events.