Global Terrorism, Strategy, and Naval Forces

We’re at war. There has been an act of war declared upon America by terrorists, and we will respond accordingly.

—George W. Bush, September 15, 2001

Globalization has enabled tremendous prosperity for America. However, a backlash against globalization is growing, not only within the United States but around the world as well. While globalization has enabled expanded economic opportunities, it has also had disruptive societal effects. Whether real or imagined, many believe that it threatens industries, jobs, living standards, and imposes unwanted societal values upon them. The United States is viewed as the champion of globalization, making it a target for groups intent on ending globalization through both peaceful and violent means.¹

In the age of globalization, the U.S. Navy is the global navy. Operating at the frontiers of freedom, it not only defends American interests abroad but also maintains the world’s sealanes for global trade. Naval forward presence both places our naval forces at risk of global terrorism and, at the same time, positions them well to lead the fight against it.

Naval forces are not strangers to global terrorists. The bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, on October 23, 1983, in which 241 marines were lost; the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 on June 14, 1985, during which Petty Officer Robert Stetham, a Navy Construction Battalion sailor, was murdered; and most recently, the bombing of the USS Cole on October 12, 2000, in which 17 shipmates were killed, were tragic acts of terrorism conducted against forward-deployed naval forces tasked with maintaining peace and stability in a troubled world. On the other hand, the August 20, 1998, Navy Tomahawk strikes against a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan and a chemical weapons facility in Sudan in retaliation for the U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania indicate one way naval forces can be employed in countering global terrorism.

The terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11 marked the beginning of a new era in the fight against global terrorism. President Bush declared war against terrorism, dictating a strategic shift from a diplomatic/police action to war.² It will be a difficult war against an elusive enemy. It is a war that must draw from the full complement of American power—to include diplomatic, economic, military, and nontraditional means—coupled with respective elements of coalition power. It requires out-of-the-box thinking and innovative solutions to difficult problems. With all of that, to be effective, it must be based upon sound strategy. As the Nation crafts and refines its new strategy in the war against terrorism, the Navy, too, must develop a maritime component of that strategy. Maritime strategy must dovetail into and support national and joint military strategy, while also dictating unique naval capabilities to be brought to bear against the enemy. The precursor to the development of strategy is understanding the threat.

The Threat

Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril.

—Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Global Terrorism

Terrorism has been around since the dawn of warfare. It is defined as “the calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological.”³ It is a tactic of psychology and violence, used by the weak against the strong, to achieve disproportionate ends via otherwise modest means of violence, through the leverage of fear.

Although terrorism has been around for ages, global terrorism is a relatively modern phenomenon. Transnational and multiethnic, it is international in scope, with terrorists representing all walks of life, poor to rich, third world to first world, illiterate to educated. Ironically, the same mechanisms that have fueled globalization have also enabled terrorism on a global scale. Global financial transactions underwrite terrorist acts around the world. Cross-continent, networked communications, whether Internet, conventional or cellular phone, interconnect transnational terrorists in near-real and real time. Most importantly, a global media spread their message of terror instantaneously around the world on an unprecedented scale—a scale that grows larger each year. Paradoxically, global terrorists employ the very means of globalization to destroy the process of globalization.

As shown in table 5–1, global terrorism comprises two components, the physical act and the psychological impact. The physical act consists of destructive acts of violence directed against the people and symbols of the enemy. But the physical act of violence is an intermediary act against the real target, the center of gravity. As defined by Carl von Clausewitz, the center of gravity is “the hub of all power and movement, on which everything depends...the point at which all our energies should be directed.” Whether by design or happenstance, global terrorists adhere to this most fundamental tenet of warfare, deriving results far greater than their numbers and capabilities warrant. They understand how to propagate their message through the global media to deliver maximum psychological impact against the enemy center of gravity.

Terrorists

The Department of State currently designates 28 groups as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs).⁴ To be designated as an FTO, an organization must be foreign, it must engage in terrorist activity as defined in Section 212 (a)(3)(B) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, and its activities must threaten the security of U.S. nationals or the national security (national defense, foreign relations, or the economic interests) of the United States. There are two special classes of FTOs: state-sponsored and loosely affiliated extremists. The distinctions are important because the ways for countering each (discussed later) are very different.

State-sponsored FTOs are backed by a state in pursuit of its national objectives, such as influencing policy of targeted nations or organizations. Seven nations currently are designated as state sponsors of terrorism: Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria. The same seven states have remained on the list since 1993. Although Afghanistan has not been designated a state sponsor of terrorism, it nonetheless remains a hotbed for terrorists. Sanctions were imposed against the Taliban on November 15, 1999, by Security Council Resolution 1267 calling for the Taliban to turn over Osama bin Laden. With the exception of Afghanistan, all of these nations border the sea.

Perhaps as a result of diplomatic success in reducing state-sponsored terrorism, a particularly virulent class of global terrorism known as loosely affiliated extremism is on the rise. Known for their operation outside of state sponsorship, uncompromising, radical objectives, and focus on producing maximum destruction and casualties, loosely affiliated extremist terrorists operate from small, often transnational/multiethnic cells, to conduct spectacular acts of terrorism.

The Department of State tracks FTOs, discerning their background, aims, composition, activities, location, area of operation, and sources of external aid—all useful information in the development of strategies against terrorism. An example of this information is shown in table 5–2 for al Qaeda.⁵ From this information and other sources, defense analysts can determine the terrorists’ strategy, enabling them to devise a strategy to combat terrorism.

Strategy

Determine the enemy’s plans and you will know which strategy will be successful and which will not.

—Sun Tzu, The Art of War

The words of Sun Tzu, written over 2,000 years ago, are as germane today as they were in his era. It is first necessary to discern the strategies of global terrorists prior to developing U.S. strategy. This is important for two reasons: to deny them their objectives and to ensure U.S. strategy does not unwittingly contribute to theirs.

Simple in concept yet difficult in construction, it is strategy that links ends with means. Through strategy, limited resources are employed to obtain the objective. Although there are commonalties between FTO objectives, they are different enough that a reconstruction of each FTO strategy will be required to develop countering strategies.

Terrorist Strategy

Table 5–3 illustrates how analysis can be used to determine the al Qaeda strategy. Its stated ends are well known through publication via mass media. Although taking an enemy’s stated objectives on face value opens one to the risk of deception, in the case of al Qaeda, its terrorist acts are in consonance with its stated ends. The means available to al Qaeda appear rather limited on the surface, when considering the group’s small numbers and limited capabilities. However, global access through the media adds an entirely new dimension to its means. Large-scale acts of terrorism have historically drawn the global media, providing global terrorists with much more powerful means than their limited resources otherwise allow.

Through evaluation of al Qaeda’s stated ends, the center of gravity can be deduced. The people, both American and Muslim, are the targets—on the one hand, to stir sentiment for a war between the two ideologies and, secondly, to move their respective governments to eliminate American presence in Muslim countries. When viewed from the prism of stated ends and available means, the al Qaeda strategy logically links the two together.

A number of key assumptions, however, dictate the success or failure of the al Qaeda strategy. First and foremost, the group must accomplish a terrorist act that produces a large enough number of casualties and/or destruction to be “newsworthy.” Second, the horrific images of death and destruction will drive Americans to react violently. Third, this violent action will, in turn, lead to large-scale, bloody images of Muslim injuries, death, and destruction. Fourth, a quid pro quo escalation of responses will result.

The al Qaeda strategy is fraught with risk. Successful terrorist acts may actually sow the seeds of the group’s own demise. With each successful act of terrorism, the United States will devote more resources to countering al Qaeda, to include the capture or elimination of all its members. The United States may not react violently, denying the terrorists the media images of bloodied Muslims that they covet. Another option (albeit an unlikely one) is that rather than withdrawing from the Muslim world, the United States might be invited to provide more help to assist Muslim governments in eliminating the anarchist threat posed by terrorists. Worse, the Muslim people may reject the twisted ideology of radical Islamic extremists and withdraw their support for, and tolerance of, al Qaeda and other FTOs.

Similar strategic assessments should be made for all FTOs. An analysis of each respective strategy will yield individual countering strategies. Additionally, an analysis of all terrorist strategies will yield commonalties and patterns that will be important in the formulation of American grand strategy to root out terrorism altogether.

American Grand Strategy

Grand strategy is the highest form of strategy. It brings together all elements of a nation’s power—diplomatic, economic, and military—to bear on the attainment of national objectives in a coherent, integrated fashion.

The principal goal in the war against global terrorism is to eradicate terrorism. While very simple to state, it will prove enormously difficult, if not altogether impossible, to achieve this end. In the process of eradicating terrorism, it will also be important to deny terrorists their objectives. But it will not be enough to just combat or limit terrorism, for any and all acts of terrorism are unacceptable. Given that global terrorism strikes at the very heart of America, threatening its citizenry, critical infrastructure, and economic well being, it is in the vital interests of the United States to stamp it out completely.

Strategic Approach

Given that global terrorism is a different type of conflict, it also requires a different strategic approach. There are four principals to the strategic approach: that global terrorism must be fought on two fronts; that different sets of offensive and defensive measures are required on each front; that nontraditional means of power are required; and that support of the American people must be maintained. A diagram of the strategic framework, discussed below, is shown in figure 5–1.

Fundamental to the development of a grand strategy against global terrorism is an understanding that it will be a two-front war. A front is defined as “the most forward battle line.” Globalization and the information age require us to think of fronts in a different way, beyond mere geographic boundaries, to include the battle lines fought through the media. As previously discussed, global terrorism has two components, the physical and the psychological. The physical front exists not only where physical acts of violence occur, but also where terrorists and their supporters reside, train, and otherwise operate. The psychological front exists at the interface between the terrorist message—propagated through mass media—and the minds and wills of the people. The psychological war is fought on the information battlefield, with terrorist rhetoric and images aimed at the psyche of the people and organizational leadership. It is war fought both directly, through carefully aimed messages from leaders launched across the media, and indirectly, by proxy, with reporters, pundits, and analysts adding their views while also carrying forward the terrorists’ message. A grand strategy to eradicate global terrorism and deny terrorists their objectives must address both the physical and psychological fronts.

The strategic approach must also address defensive and offensive measures against terrorism. These measures, known respectively as antiterrorism and counterterrorism,⁶ will be very different altogether along the two fronts. Collectively, they must work in consonance with one another, both physically and psychologically, across the entire spectrum of national means.

While traditional diplomatic, economic, and military means are still needed, nontraditional means of national and international power will also be required to combat global terrorism. Judicial measures have already been employed in both domestic law and law enforcement, but they must become better connected to allow for greater interagency cooperation. The same also needs to occur in international law and between international law enforcement agencies. Cultural means must be developed in order to defend the public on the psychological front.

The foundation for the strategic approach is the support of the American people. Democratic governments represent the people to serve the people. In times of crisis, democratic governments also lead the people. The power of the United States is based upon the strength of the American people—without their support, any action to eradicate terrorism is doomed to failure.

Table 5–4 depicts both the offensive and defensive, physical and psychological objectives that need to be distributed between governmental and nongovernmental entities to achieve the ends of eradicating terrorism and, in the interim, denying terrorists their objectives. Because of the push-pull relationship between the two fronts, where physical measures can impact psychological, and vice versa, it is important to deconflict measures that may have unintended consequences along the other front.

For example, special forces might be assigned to neutralize a terrorist cell. If these forces were to get into a firefight with the terrorists and video was obtained and later released that depicted Muslims killed by Americans, the results could be very damaging. A tactical victory on the physical front involving tens of people would result in an operational defeat on the psychological front as viewed by millions to billions! A small band of terrorists would be eliminated, contributing to the stated end, but the terrorist objective would gain mightily because of the antagonizing of the Muslim world, potentially providing terrorists with more recruits, more support, and more bad will toward the West.

The Psychological Front

While operations on the physical front are well understood, operations on the psychological front are fraught with not only the danger of unintended consequences, but also uncontrollability and severe backlash.

Terrorism in the 21st century will be forever linked to the images of the fall of the World Trade Towers, images the terrorists actively sought to achieve. These images are indelibly etched on the psyche of this generation. However, in the aftermath of the tragedy, a countering image—a picture of three firefighters raising the American flag at the site of the World Trade Center ruins—rallied American patriotism and resolution. The first image intended to induce terror in support of al Qaeda objectives; the second, a spontaneous picture of patriotic heroes in action, illustrates the complexity of image control on the psychological front. Images from the September 11 attack may have inadvertently sown the seeds of terrorist defeat by galvanizing governments and people of all faiths throughout the world against them, rather than contributing to any of their objectives.

Governments face a particularly daunting dilemma on the psychological front. Countering psychological manipulation, whether by terrorists or other enemies, is a vexing problem, particularly given the power and reach of television. Not only must government expose terrorist propaganda as it surfaces, it also must protect influential American leaders, broadcasters, and entertainers from succumbing to its spell, as well. For example, during the Vietnam War, actress Jane Fonda was manipulated by communist propaganda to the point that she openly assisted the communists. During her visit to North Vietnam, she mounted the gunner’s seat of a communist Vietnamese antiaircraft gun. While she did not shoot down any American planes, the image was still damaging, buttressing the spirits of the North Vietnamese while hurting morale of American fighting men and women. Eighteen years later, in an interview with Barbara Walters, she would apologize for allowing herself to be duped as a propaganda vehicle:

Attempts to censor the free press to control the psychological front have met with resistance since the Vietnam War. However, this resistance is not necessarily reflected in the attitude of the American public. According to journalist Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post:

Yet there is an understanding among some journalists that the media must tread carefully on the psychological front. In the same article about journalistic limits on information in the aftermath of the September 11 tragedy, Kurtz noted an e-mail to a Washington Post reporter that stated, “Criticism of the administration at this critical time is more than unpatriotic—to the extent it undermines our national confidence and political will to proceed, it gives comfort to the enemy.”⁸

Americans are more tolerant of operational security and the need to withhold information that may put the lives of military members at risk. They still want to know the truth—something a just and righteous government should always endeavor to provide them. Yet one man’s truth can appears as another man’s propaganda. In the absence of any information from the government, the media will still fill the information void, airing and publishing the best guesses of pundits, journalists—even the enemy.

Deception, which can be used to mislead an adversary, will also chip away at the people’s trust and confidence in their government. Acts of deception reduce government credibility. Nonetheless, Americans will tolerate deception on occasion, when the stakes are deemed worth it. General Norman Schwarzkopf’s “left hook” maneuver during Operation Desert Storm was masked by the deception that coalition forces would conduct a frontal attack directly into the Iraqi defenses in Kuwait, engaging in a battle of attrition rather than maneuver. Americans did not question the deception, as the limited casualties were well worth it, and exact knowledge of the attack plan did not seem necessary for a public understanding of U.S. policy.

As the previous discussion indicates, the United States must tread carefully on the psychological front in the war against global terrorism. A particularly awkward problem in crafting a psychological strategy against global terrorism is how to address radical Islam. Perverted in its twisting of the Islamic faith, radical Islam provides global terrorists with both a powerful recruiting tool and a means to get otherwise rational men to willingly give up their lives for the cause. For example, found in the belongings of Mohamed Atta, one of the leaders of the September 11 acts of terrorism, was “a five-page handwritten document in Arabic that includes Islamic prayers, instructions for a last night of life,” described by Bob Woodward of The Washington Post as “a cross between a chilling spiritual exhortation aimed at the hijackers and an operational mission checklist.”⁹

In a country based upon freedom of religion, the U.S. Government is largely devoid of options to counter this weapon. While President Bush has been able to tap Islamic scholars for intellectual tools in speeches against radical Islam,¹⁰ that is about the limit of democratic government bounds in the world of religion. For example, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi made an apparently damaging assertion that Western civilization is superior to Islam and suggested that he hopes the West conquers Islamic civilization.¹¹ The backlash was immediate, when “Muslims around the world...demanded an apology from Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and the European Union recoiled with horror.”¹²

Cultural leaders who do not have a government affiliation are best suited to handle the province of culture and religion. Words of wisdom have risen spontaneously from leaders in American culture. A heartening example was the September 21 telethon conducted by entertainment superstars that raised $150 million for victims.¹³ Muhammad Ali, one of the world’s most famous followers of Islam, stated in the show (seen by nearly 60 million viewers):

I’ve been a Muslim for 20 years, and I’m against killing, violence—and all Muslims are against it...Islam is peace, against killing, murder, and the terrorist. The people that do it in the name of Islam are wrong. And if I had a chance, I’d do something about it.¹⁴

In summary, the U.S. Government must take the moral high ground at the strategic level on the psychological front. It must take a strategic approach that maintains its credibility with truth when it can speak, silence when it cannot. Terrorist misinformation, lies, and propaganda must be publicly exposed. The public, media, entertainers, and other key cultural leaders should be educated about psychological warfare to prevent them from being unwittingly duped. A united international front must be built against global terrorism, with every overture of unity made public. Provocative criticism of Muslims in general and Islam specifically must be prevented. Images of bloodied Muslims, even though they are terrorists, must be forestalled through covert snatch-and-drag operations, in which video opportunities are limited and prisoners and casualties are evacuated from the battlefield. Censorship should be limited to that required by operational necessity. Government guidance must publicly buttress morale, not only of those engaged in the war against global terrorism, but also those witness to and potentially victim of its indiscriminate acts of violence and global psychological impact.

The Physical Front

The United States must seize the strategic initiative against global terrorism on the physical front. Prior to the World Trade Center/Pentagon attack, the United States countered terrorism through a diplomatic/judicial approach. This approach was reflected in U.S. policy goals, described by the Department of State:

The Department of State engages terrorism diplomatically, directly and indirectly, through policy aimed at designated terrorist organizations and state sponsors of terrorism. Designated terrorist organizations, of which the State Department currently lists 28, are addressed through policy that:

Secondly, the United States enlists sanctions against nations designated as state sponsors of terrorism in order to isolate them from the international community. The intent is to drain the swamps where terrorists seek refuge. The seven nations designated as state sponsors of terrorism are Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria.¹⁷

Acts of terror are deemed crimes, and crime is dealt with in the judicial system. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the lead organization against terrorism committed in the United States, not only must meet the judicial system’s significant burden of proof requirements, but ironically, also must safeguard terrorists’ rights in the course of investigation:

This peacetime, judicial approach came at a steep price—it placed the United States on the strategic defensive against terrorism. Terrorists were afforded the freedom to reconnoiter the landscape for weakness. Terrorists picked the time and place of their attacks. Terrorists were able to mass covertly, in very small windows of time, limiting their vulnerability. On the other hand, the United States was forced to attempt the impossible—to build strong defenses everywhere, and remain strong all the time—in a legalistic, Maginot Line approach.

A war on terrorism, however, would seemingly unshackle the Government, enabling it to let loose “the big dog” and utilize military means of fighting terrorism, along with diplomatic, economic, judicial, and cultural means. In war, the military is not bound by the onerous burden of proof that confronts diplomatic and judicial means of combating terrorism. Once an adversary is declared hostile, the military can engage enemy combatants, which are defined as “all members of the regularly organized armed forces¹⁹ of a party to the conflict, as well as irregular forces who are under responsible command and subject to internal military discipline, carry their arms openly, and otherwise distinguish themselves clearly from the civilian population.”²⁰ The problem with terrorists, however, is that they do not carry their arms openly or otherwise distinguish themselves from the civilian population. They pose as noncombatants, an unlawful deception in war known as perfidy, punishable as a war crime. Global terrorists care little about perfidy and war crimes, in the same vein as rebel forces in modern insurgencies.

This presents a problem on the military side of the physical front. Military history provides many lessons on how to counter an insurgency, a cousin of global terrorism. The Israel/Palestine experience, the United States experience in Vietnam, and the British experience in Northern Ireland provide valuable, hard-earned lessons on how and how not to combat global terrorism.

Counterinsurgency has been conducted through both attrition and maneuver approaches. According to Gavin Bulloch, a British counterinsurgency expert, the attrition approach has a storied past, with generally poor results.²¹ Military dominated attrition campaigns have largely proven to be ineffectual, except in instances where military operations were subordinate to the overall political effort.

Israel, a predominantly Jewish nation bordered by several Muslim nations, faces a much clearer and present terrorist danger, both internally and across its borders. The Israelis have taken an attrition approach to their counterinsurgency/counterterrorism campaign, reflected in former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement before the U.S. House Government Reform Committee:

The United States experience in Vietnam was largely an attrition approach to counterinsurgency. However, the United States did attempt a pacification strategy designed to win the “hearts and minds” of the people during the early period of the war. The Marines instituted a Combined Action Platoon (CAP) program in 1965, based upon previous success with the concept in Haiti, Nicaragua, and Santo Domingo earlier in the century. The CAP units consisted of 15-man rifle squads, all volunteers, trained in Vietnamese language, culture, and customs. Tasked initially with establishing village security in hamlets within the Marine area of operations, the long-term CAP mission was to destroy the National Liberation Front infrastructure, organize intelligence networks, and train the local Vietnamese militia known as the Popular Forces. The CAPs were successful but eventually were discontinued due to a lack of top-level support. General Victor Krulak, the senior Marine champion of the CAP program, was unable to persuade General William Westmoreland and President Lyndon Johnson to pursue the pacification strategy across Vietnam. The Marines then fell in with the Army’s attrition-based strategy.²³

British counterinsurgency doctrine is based upon maneuver warfare, in which one strives to attack the enemy’s “system” from a position of advantage rather than head on through cumulative destruction of every component in the enemy arsenal.²⁴ Nonetheless, Bulloch recognizes that:

Taking the strategic initiative will mean going after global terrorists where they live, train, and operate, forcing global terrorists on the defensive. What has worked well in counterinsurgencies may not work in countering global terrorism. Countering global terrorism differs markedly from counterinsurgency in that military forces may not have the legitimacy of working within their own territory. Military forces may have to be inserted into the potentially hostile territory of states that sponsor terrorism. A conundrum exists in that any land-based forces staged overseas to attack terrorism must also defend against terrorism. They are, at once, a risk to the terrorists but at risk from the terrorists as well. Worse, their very presence on the sovereign territory of a predominantly Muslim nation may go farther to exacerbate anti-Western sentiment on the psychological front.

Plainly, declaring war on global terrorism does not unleash “the big dog” at all. While it adds the military to the mix of means that decisionmakers have available to combat global terrorism, it also raises the stakes, introducing a Pandora’s Box of unintentional consequences. Decisionmakers must weigh the risks of introducing military forces with the benefits, chief of which is the means to take the battle to the enemy.

The war on global terrorism will be a war of maneuver. The strategy must be crafted such that measures implemented on the physical front work in harmony with psychological measures. Tactical engagements will have to be planned with an eye toward operational and strategic implications. Maximum effort must be focused on eliminating the terrorist center of gravity—its leadership, without fueling more terrorism by lionizing their martyrdom.

Finding the terrorist center of gravity may prove to be the most difficult aspect in the war against global terrorism. Localizing and fixing the position of terrorist leadership will demand a plethora of intelligence and law enforcement resources. Military intelligence must work seamlessly with not only U.S. interagency intelligence sources but international ones as well. Domestic and international law enforcement agencies must also be integrated into the overall intelligence effort. Individually, one agency might hold a key piece of the intelligence puzzle that, although seemingly insignificant at the micro level, provides the critical detail needed at the macro level to solve the terrorist network.

Seizing the initiative against global terrorism will require a broad, international, interagency effort, unprecedented in liaison, communication, and sharing of information. Bureaucratic rivalries must be shelved. Political agendas must be put aside. Military forces must be added to and integrated with diplomatic, economic, judicial, and cultural means in a coherent strategy that criminalizes terrorism and its support, eliminates or captures terrorists, denies them sanctuary, and dries up their support on the physical front. Internationally, allies and coalition partners will have to commit to the strategy and keep the pressure on in an unrelenting pursuit of global terrorists, allowing no reprieve or sanctuary. Most importantly, America, as the sole remaining superpower and leader of the free world, must remain engaged and stay the course.

Naval Forces

If a man does not know to what port he is steering, no wind is favorable.

—Seneca, 4 BCE–65 CE

The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps have always responded to the needs of the nation by evolving within the bounds of resources and national will to meet the threat. In the beginning, our forefathers established the Navy and Marine Corps to protect the American coast and to raid commerce. The Barbary pirates provided a need for a fleet that could enforce respect for U.S. interests, especially trade and shipping. After the War of 1812, naval forces were used as an instrument of foreign policy, showing the flag around the world as foreign trade was expanded and the seas were cleared of pirates and slavers. Blockade operations and riverine campaigns during the Civil War required naval forces to command the seas and provide direct support for land operations. During World War II, naval forces projected force inland from the seas in amphibious and carrier operations. The Navy once again evolved during the Cold War to provide the Nation with a strategic nuclear deterrence capability.²⁶

The September 11 strike on the World Trade Center and Pentagon provided impetus for naval forces to add yet another function, to conduct counterterrorism operations and defend the homeland. Although the current naval vision,...From the Sea, updated with Forward...From the Sea, is still legitimate in its focus on littoral operations, it will require an update to include the function of countering terrorism and defending the homeland. Combating global terrorism will entail an expanded role for naval forces in both conventional and nonconventional ways.

As discussed previously, the United States must seize the strategic initiative from global terrorists and root them out from their hiding places throughout the world. To do this, the United States must project power far from the shores of America into the terrorists’ backyard. Naval power projection capability provides a menu of means to reach terrorists. Cruise missiles, launched from submarines and surface ships, can reach terrorist strongholds hundreds of miles inland. Precision-guided munitions can similarly be utilized from carrier-based aircraft. Marines can attack terrorist camps close to the beach. Navy SEALS can either attack or “snatch and drag” terrorists covertly, from the sea, air, or land. Many naval capabilities that traditionally support power projection also contribute in other ways to the fight against terrorism. Cryptologic capability and signals intelligence not only directly support naval power projection, but they also fuse into the overall intelligence network.

The utilization of naval forces in counterterrorism offers an advantage over land-based forces. Any land-based forces sent overseas to attack terrorists will concurrently be at risk of attack from terrorists. Sea-based naval forces, on the other hand, can operate at sea, over the horizon and out of sight of terrorists, indefinitely. The blue-water mobility of naval forces allows them an element of inherent force protection.²⁷ More importantly, naval forces can move stealthily to the point of launch, mounting surprise attacks against the enemy.

The Marine Corps is poised to take full advantage of seabasing through the conduct of expeditionary maneuver warfare. Over the past decade, the Marines have refined their operational concepts of operational maneuver from the sea and ship to objective maneuver to the threshold of reality. With the full-scale fielding of such equipment as the LPD 17 class of ship, the advanced amphibious assault vehicle, and the MV–22 Osprey, the Navy and Marine Corps team will take advantage of the stealth, mobility, and operational reach afforded operations from the sea, to deny global terrorists sanctuary in the littorals.

Naval forces should consider adding a few areas to their list of extensive capabilities, given the advantages described above. In order to extend the advantage of seabasing to joint forces, the Navy should consider building two new classes of ships. The first would be a new joint command and control class of ship,²⁸ designed to host a joint task force (JTF) commander. The ship should be configured to support not only the JTF commander and his staff but also interagency personnel, knowledgeable in the offerings of their agencies with the connectivity means to coordinate with them. Included in the command and control warfare suite would be a joint psychological operations capability. Given the importance of winning the war on the psychological front, the Navy should seriously consider hosting a robust capability in this area.²⁹ Additionally, the addition of linguistic personnel expert in various Arabic dialects should be pursued to support psychological operations, intelligence, and cryptologic missions.

Second, the Navy should consider a joint special operations class of ship, either an altered LPD 17 or a new ship of similar design. This class of ship would host Special Forces and be equipped with helicopters and the tilt-rotor V–22 Osprey for vertical operations. Likewise it could accommodate small boats or SEAL delivery vehicles from the well deck for submerged or surface operations. It should also be tailored to support the Cyclone-class coastal patrol boat, to include nesting, refueling, rearmament, resupply, and rest and relaxation for special forces. A joint special operations class of ship could accommodate adaptive joint force packaging,³⁰ with forces tailored for the specific counterterrorism mission.³¹

Although naval forces possess the endurance to stay at sea indefinitely, it is hard on the sailors and marines to stay on a ship for an entire 6-month deployment. Subsequently, ships must make overseas port calls, during which they are as vulnerable as land-based forces. The Navy learned a host of antiterrorism lessons from the USS Cole tragedy and has implemented many procedures to prevent another such occurrence. Still, there is much to be done. Ships simply do not have the resources to check out a port prior to entry. Navy fleet support infrastructure must be beefed up to include port security fly-away teams. Fly-away teams from the numbered fleets should be tasked with clearing a port for entry and ensuring adequate force protection prior to the arrival of U.S. Navy ships and submarines to foreign ports. All surface ships should be upgraded with the phalanx surface mode to the Mk 15 Phalanx Close-In Weapon System (CIWS).³² This upgrade provides an electro-optical day/night detection capability, enabling CIWS to engage surface and slow-moving air targets at an astounding rate of very accurate fire, providing ships with the means to thwart even the most determined overt terrorist attack.

Conclusion

The global terrorist threat is a clear and present danger to all Americans. The Navy and Marine Corps team offers the Nation a global maneuver force, well suited to taking the fight to the enemy. To meet and defeat global terrorism, however, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps team will have to evolve to provide the Nation with contributory capabilities to deny terrorists their objectives and, ultimately, to eradicate global terrorism altogether. Naval forces must align with other means of national power in a coherent, integrated strategy that combats terrorism on both the physical and psychological fronts.

In the age of globalization, sound strategy, rather than the winds of which Seneca wrote, dictates the course to take once the destination is known. There is no greater duty for a nation’s military than protecting its citizens abroad and at home. May the Navy and Marine Corps team plot the right course to reach this most important of all ports.

Commander Randall G. Bowdish, USN, is a faculty member of the USMC Command and Staff College. A surface warfare officer, he most recently commanded the USS Simpson. Previously he served as strategic planner on the Joint Staff, and in the Strategy and Concepts Branch of the U.S. Navy staff, where he was responsible for drafting a long-range naval vision. He dedicates this chapter to the World Trade Center and Pentagon victims, particularly Captain Gerald DeConto, USN, former commanding officer of the USS Simpson, killed in the September 11 terrorist attack on the Pentagon.

Notes

¹ See discussion in Frank Carlucci, Robert Hunter, and Zalmay Khalilzad, Taking Charge: A Bipartisan Report to the President Elect on Foreign Policy and National Security—Discussion Papers MR1306/1–RC (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2000), 9–11. BACK

² Prior to the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the Department of State was the lead agency against terrorism outside the United States, while the Department of Justice led the effort against terrorism within the United States. BACK

³ U.S. Department of Defense, Joint Publication 1–02, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, April 12, 2001). BACK

⁴ U.S. Department of State, Foreign Terrorist Organizations, Designations by Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, 1999 Report Index, October 8, 1999, accessed at <http://www.state.gov/www/global/terrorism/fto_1999.html>. BACK

⁵ From U.S. Department of State Background Information on Foreign Terrorist Organizations, October 8, 1999. BACK

⁶ U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publication 3–07.2, Joint Tactics, Techniques and Procedures for Antiterrorism (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, March 17, 1998), I–1. BACK

⁷ Howard Kurtz, “Journalists Worry About Limits on Information, Access,” The Washington Post, September 24, 2001, A5. BACK

⁸ Ibid. BACK

⁹ Bob Woodward, “In Hijacker’s Bags, a Call to Planning, Prayer, and Death,” The Washington Post, September 28, 2001, A1. BACK

¹⁰ Dana Milbank, “Professor Shapes Bush Rhetoric,” The Washington Post, September 26, 2001, A6. BACK

¹¹ Associated Press, “Italian Leader Says West Can ‘Conquer’ Islam,” The Washington Post, September 27, 2001, A15. BACK

¹² Crispian Balmer, “Muslims Call Italian’s Take on Islam ‘Racist’,” The Washington Post, September 28, 2001, A26. BACK

¹³ ABCNews.com, “Stars Raise $150 Million,” September 25, 2001, accessed at <http://more.abcnews.go.com/sections/entertainment/DailyNews/tribute010925.html>. BACK

¹⁴ “Telethon Audience is Bigger Than Bush’s,” Los Angeles Times, September 23, 2001, accessed at <http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-092301tele.story>. BACK

¹⁵ U.S. Department of State, Patterns of Global Terrorism: 1999 (Washington, DC: Department of State, April 2000), 1. BACK

¹⁶ Ibid., 4. BACK

¹⁷ Ibid., 2. BACK

¹⁸ U.S. Department of Justice, Counterterrorism Threat Assessment and Warning Unit, Counterterrorism Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Terrorism in the United States, 1999, i. BACK

¹⁹ Exempted are medical personnel, chaplains, civil defense personnel, and members of the armed forces who have acquired civil defense status. BACK

²⁰ See U.S. Navy, NWP 7, The Commander’s Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations, chapter 5, accessed at <http://www.cpf.navy.mil/pages/legal/NWP%201–14/NWPCH5.htm>. BACK

²¹ Gavin Bulloch, “Military Doctrine and Counterinsurgency: A British Perspective,” Parameters 26, no. 2 (Summer 1996), 4–16. BACK

²² Statement by Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Hearing of the U.S. House Government Reform Committee, Preparing For The War On Terrorism: Understanding The Nature And Dimensions Of The Threat, Washington, DC, September 20, 2001. BACK

²³ Peter Brush, “The War’s ‘Constructive Component’,” Vietnam, February 1997, Web version accessed at <www.shss.montclair,edu/english/furr/pbvietnam0297.html >; Max Boot, “Vietnam’s Lessons on How to Fight Globo-Guerrillas,” Wall Street Journal, October, 2, 2001, A18. BACK

²⁴ U.S. Marine Corps, MCDP 1, Warfighting (Washington, DC: Department of the Navy, June 20, 1997), 37. BACK

²⁵ Bulloch, 4–16. BACK

²⁶ See John Chase, “The Function of the Navy,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings (October 1969), 27–33, for a discussion on the functions of the Navy, and Peter M. Swartz, “Classic Roles and Future Challenges: The Navy After Next,” in Strategic Transformations and Naval Power in the 21st Century, ed. Pelham G. Boyer and Robert S. Wood (Newport, RI: Naval War College Press 1998), 273–305, for an updated version. BACK

²⁷ Critics have suggested that the bombing of the USS Cole indicates that naval forces are as vulnerable as land-based overseas presence to terrorist attack. However, the Cole was in Aden harbor primarily for the diplomatic purpose of engagement; she could have been scheduled to refuel at sea. BACK

²⁸ See Christopher E. Brown, The ‘Q’ Transition,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 123, no. 2 (February 1997), 57–61, for a discussion on the functionality that a command and control ship should contain. Another argument for a joint ship is Sam J. Tangredi, “A Ship for All Reasons,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 125, no. 9 (September 1999), 92–95. BACK

²⁹ Randall G. Bowdish, “Psychological Operations...From the Sea,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 124, no. 2 (February 1998), 70–72. See also Bowdish, “Information Age Psychological Operations,” Military Review (December 1998/January-February 1999), 29–37. BACK

³⁰ See Paul David Miller, “A New Mission for Atlantic Command,” Joint Force Quarterly (Summer 1993), 80–87, for a discussion on adaptive joint force packaging. BACK

³¹As of mid-October 2001, the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk was operating in a similar role, precipitating a debate on the appropriateness of aircraft carriers as special operations platforms. BACK

³² U.S. Navy, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations, Vision...Presence...Power, A Program Guide to the U.S. Navy—2000 Edition. BACK