The Rise of Asymmetric Threats: Priorities for Defense Planning

by Kenneth F. McKenzie, Jr.

At the beginning of the new millennium, the United States is ubiquitous, and ubiquity brings vulnerability. Because of this, hostile nations and groups will inevitably seek ways to undermine U.S. strength by attacking its vulnerabilities. These have come to be called asymmetric threats. The interest of the defense establishment in asymmetric threats is a recognition of an enduring truth: weaker powers, both state and nonstate, will seek ways to mitigate the dominance of the strong.

The first task of this chapter is to define asymmetry. The proposed definition emphasizes the psychological components and disproportionate effects of asymmetric warfare. Three recurring themes are identified that give structure to the definition. First, asymmetric options are sought actively by the weaker party when there is a disparity of interest between the two antagonists. Second, the target of all asymmetric approaches is the will of the stronger opponent. Third, this is achieved through the pursuit of psychological effect on the strategic level, no matter what level of war is involved.

The second task of this chapter is to determine what the asymmetric threats are to the United States and to suggest where it should concentrate in defense planning. This requires establishing a broad typology of asymmetry. Six threats are identified: nuclear, chemical, biological, information operations, alternative operational concepts, and terrorism. Each of these is examined in-depth, across the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of war. The integration of asymmetric threats and potential U.S. vulnerabilities enables the creation of a list of the 10 most serious asymmetric threats to the United States. Identification of such a set of potential threats can give discipline to the planning process and allow for the design of appropriate counters.

The final task of this chapter is to suggest what the United States might do to improve its ability to counter asymmetric threats. The United States does not, at the present time, have a single accepted concept for how to organize for asymmetric defense, and there is little coordination between existing initiatives. A top-down, simple, and clear concept is the starting point for improvement, based on three imperatives: minimize vulnerabilities, accentuate unique strengths, and prevent disproportionate effects. Based on these three organizing ideas, recommendations are offered to minimize U.S. vulnerability to asymmetric attacks.

We define asymmetric warfare as leveraging inferior tactical or operational strength against the vulnerabilities of a superior opponent to achieve disproportionate effect with the aim of undermining the opponent's will in order to achieve the asymmetric actor's strategic objectives. This definition emphasizes the element of disproportionate effect--achieving strategic objectives through application of limited resources--and the explicit recognition of the importance of the psychological component. These elements are essential to considering how an asymmetric actor can achieve strategic objectives through an operation--even a failed operation--that, from the perspective of the larger power, is otherwise only a tactical attack.

Any consideration of asymmetric threats must start with the most basic asymmetry of all: disparity of interest. The greatest incentive for using asymmetric approaches rises from a real or perceived disparity of interest. A weak adversary who has a vital interest that conflicts with the nonvital interest of a strong state has the greatest incentive to use asymmetric approaches. Given the breadth of American security interests, there will be many areas of potential conflict where no vital interest is at stake for the United States, but where a regional actor has vital interests. Asymmetric approaches can work in three ways. First, they can deter U.S. entry into crises where there is no U.S. vital interest by threatening disproportionate damage to the United States. Would the loss of Seattle to a ballistic missile attack be a reasonable trade for the unconditional surrender of a hostile Pyongyang government? Absent a vital American interest, such a threat would have a powerful effect on U.S. planners. This situation is the most likely to have a positive outcome for the weaker state.

Second, if a decision has been made to employ U.S. forces in a contingency that involves a less-than-vital national interest, an asymmetric approach by an adversary that threatens to cause rapid and disproportionate effect may halt a U.S. entry or accelerate a withdrawal. If the perceived U.S. stake is low and if it becomes apparent that involvement may become very expensive in terms of human and material cost, then a weaker state might calculate that a shocking display of force might cause the United States to recalculate the costs and benefits of engagement.

Third, an asymmetric approach may enable regional actors to pursue aggressive strategies indirectly, by making it hard for the United States to marshal the will to act. Information operations, terrorist attacks, or other unconventional approaches could make it difficult to trace sponsorship with the certainty required by the United States for action, ultimately diffusing the U.S. response until it may be too late to act effectively. To this end, regional states will work hard to manage their relationship with the United States, pursuing regional objectives while working assiduously to prevent or to minimize U.S. interference.

Asymmetric approaches can achieve powerful effect through manipulation of the psychological element. Aimed directly at the will of the opponent, they can compensate for material or other deficiencies. While the method of the approach may be tactical, the psychological effect is sought at the strategic level. This is a distinguishing feature of asymmetry: the continual focus on strategic effect by reliance on the psychological component of the approach selected. In functional terms, the target becomes the mind and in particular the will of the opponent. Asymmetric approaches have been applied on all levels of war, but the most effective asymmetric approaches seek to attain strategic effect regardless of the level on which they are applied. It follows that there may be a definitional blurring between the level of the action and the level of the effect, and, for the asymmetric actor, the goal is to produce effect on the highest possible level. The strategic level encompasses, in the broadest sense, actions taken to accomplish national-level security and foreign policy objectives. Actions on the tactical and operational level may yield strategic outcomes, the ideal objective of any asymmetric approach.

Determining effectiveness is critical in evaluating asymmetric approaches. What works and what does not work? Effective asymmetric approaches tend to have several common characteristics. From the perspective of the target, they are unexpected actions. The intuitive response may worsen the situation, while the most effective response may be counterintuitive. Effective asymmetric operations cause a disproportionate amount of damage to the target for the investment in resources, time, and money by the attacker. U.S. actions and strategic choices will drive the nature of the asymmetric threat. As the United States refines operational practices, potential adversaries will look to find ways to counter. This process of action-reaction is inescapable.

What Are the Asymmetric Threats?

This section outlines the range of potential asymmetric threats that the United States could face through the year 2010, focusing on the general types of potential asymmetric approaches that reasonably could be expected to be employed. As stated above, it identifies a typology of six potential asymmetric threats: nuclear, chemical, biological, information operations, operational concepts, and terrorism. These six categories of threats are logical descendants of asymmetric approaches used throughout history. The greatest change at the beginning of the 21^st century, however, is the dramatically increasing effectiveness of technology and its ability to create global effects from local events.

Nuclear Weapons

The ultimate expression of power in the world today is the possession of nuclear weapons. Owning nuclear weapons allows a state or nonstate actor to have a seat at the high stakes table. The former Indian army chief of staff, General K. Sundarji, is reported to have said that a principal lesson of the Gulf War is that if a state intends to fight the United States, it should avoid doing so until and unless it possesses nuclear weapons.¹

On the tactical level, a nuclear weapon could be employed directly against maneuver or support forces in the field by short-range ballistic missile, tactical aircraft delivery, or mining or other covert means. In this context, the asymmetry of approach is principally derived from the deterrent effect that an adversary's possession of such a weapon would have on U.S. responses to crises. Actual state-sponsored use of a nuclear weapon against forces in the field is the least effective method of employment of a nuclear weapon; in fact, in many ways it is no more than the ultimate symmetric response.

Adversaries will be hesitant to employ nuclear weapons on the tactical level for several reasons. First, unless the attack is a complete strategic surprise, tactical maneuver forces can disperse rapidly, making it hard to achieve military effect commensurate with political cost. Second, it will be very easy to trace responsibility for the attack, particularly if it is delivered by conventional means. Third, use of nuclear weapons against U.S. forces would almost certainly invite a staggering response that might not stop short of the imposition of unconditional surrender. Last, adversaries will not have many nuclear weapons, and targeting fielded forces is surely the least cost-effective method of employing them.

Nuclear weapons would have the most potential utility in the early stages of a major theater war, when they can threaten or deter U.S. deployment into a theater. They would be of less utility after U.S. forces close and the theater matures, but they would again become a significant factor in the end-state of an MTW, particularly if the adversary saw the possibility of cataclysmic defeat. In this case, the temptation would be strong to use any and all means in a spasmodic response to try either to change the tide of battle or simply to take revenge on the United States or its allies.

The use of nuclear weapons against U.S. forces on the tactical level by a rational state actor is unlikely. The tactical employment of nuclear weapons against forces in the field is not really a practical asymmetric approach. If executed, it would tend to create a case of vital national interest for the United States, where perhaps there had not been one before. The concept of disproportionality would then be turned upon its head, and high risks would be accrued by the actor with little gain. The threat of use is more problematic, although threats against fielded forces also carry many of the risks of a deterring strategy while reaping few of the advantages.

Nuclear weapons can be employed operationally against the deployment and theater support infrastructure in order to deter, slow, or even halt the deployment of forces into a theater. Attacks against fixed targets would be easier to plan and to execute than attacks against forces in the field. The advantage of employment against fixed rear-area targets is that instead of targeting the most-prepared forces (usually tactical maneuver forces that possess organic mobility), targets could be selected from forces with less protection and little ability to move.

It follows that, for a state actor, the greatest opportunity to employ or to threaten to employ nuclear weapons would be in the early stages of a conflict. The intent would be initially to deter and to complicate U.S. force deployment considerations and potentially to destroy critical infrastructure in order to prevent physical deployment. If employed early enough, they might destroy or degrade critical aerial and surface ports of debarkation before U.S. forces even arrive, creating a difficult situation for the National Command Authorities (NCA). If nuclear weapons were employed against U.S. forces, the response would clearly be overwhelming and direct, but what if they were employed against an ally, and few, if any, U.S. forces felt the results? Such a use or even its threat might make potential U.S. allies more reluctant to participate in a coalition structure. The direct threat of nuclear employment against an ally or potential ally very early in a crisis might have the effect of dissuading that nation from participating in a coalition with the United States.

Strategic employment is the threat or the use of a nuclear weapon against the U.S. homeland. Strategic effect is sought by direct strategic attack. For a regional power or rogue state, the greatest asymmetric utility for these weapons is in their deterring effect. A demonstrated or otherwise credible ability to strike the U.S. homeland would have a sobering effect on any U.S. decisionmaker considering bombing a regional adversary's capital or even deploying forces in the face of threats or warnings when vital national interests are not at stake. The possession of nuclear weapons, and the demonstrated (or even suspected) capability to deliver them against the American homeland, could have the effect of dampening sentiment for intervention.

It is difficult to conceive of a rational actor electing to employ nuclear weapons against the United States in a direct strategic attack. To do so would invite its own annihilation. The deterrent effect of a U.S. response, however, might erode in a war in which the regional actor sees events going badly against it. If it looked as though the United States and its allies planned either to bomb a country into submission or to occupy its capital, then that country would have little to lose; in such a Götterdämmerung scenario, the possibility of actual use would become likely.

In an extended MTW, aggressive U.S. efforts to destroy or to neutralize a foe's nuclear delivery structure might result in another response familiar from the Cold War: a "use 'em or lose 'em" response. An opponent cannot stand to see its strategic trump card taken away. This does not imply that the Armed Forces should never attempt to do this, but it must be prepared for an adversary to use its weapons if we engage in aggressive WMD reduction during a regime-threatening war.

A threat to use nuclear weapons directly against the U.S. homeland is a powerful asymmetric measure. It achieves clear strategic effect and operates directly against the will of the United States. Such an approach might tend to make the United States rethink just where its vital national interests lie. Many of these asymmetric advantages could be lost, however, if a threat were actually carried out. A nuclear attack would provoke a powerful and unrelenting response from the United States. There is a fine line between the positive disproportionate strategic effect achievable by the possession of nuclear weapons and the potentially disastrous consequences of their actual use against the United States.

The use of nuclear weapons by nonstate actors against the United States is the least likely alternative because of the difficulty of procuring, infiltrating, and emplacing the weapon. It is, however, a possibility and may ultimately prove the most troubling of all the strategic nuclear threats. Such an attack could be just as damaging as anything launched by a state actor, but the United States would find it difficult to establish responsibility. The threat of use of nuclear weapons thus has the greatest effect at the strategic level, although threats on both the operational and tactical levels could create similar disproportionate benefits. In terms of actual employment, the use against regional supporting infrastructures is probably the most effective; it will never be a good idea to use nuclear weapons directly against the Armed Forces or the U.S. homeland.

Chemical Weapons

Of the three types of WMD, chemical weapons are generally considered to be the least damaging. On the other hand, they are also the easiest to procure, and, if history is any guide, less stigma is associated with their use. Iraq has used them extensively against Iran and against its own Kurds.² As with nuclear weapons, the use of chemical weapons on the tactical level against U.S. maneuver forces--the most-ready part of the U.S. force structure--is not cost-effective. Some of the delivery complications that apply to nuclear weapons also operate here, although the use of shorter-range artillery and tactical rocket delivery may partially ease them. The application of chemical weapons against refugee or other noncombatant populations could be an attractive option to opponents because it could stress the capabilities of U.S. forces to care for themselves and for a large pool of suffering noncombatants, and thus dramatically cloud the battlefield.

The Armed Forces are generally well prepared to fight and to win in a chemical environment; this is both a legacy of decades of preparation to fight the Soviets and a function of a renaissance of tactical chemical awareness in the past 5 years. Even so, the use of chemical weapons on the tactical battlefield would tend to slow the tempo, as units are forced to don protective overgarments and to conduct chemical reconnaissance and frequent decontamination. Slowing the tempo of operations will be a key component of any attempt to counter U.S. dominance.

Allied forces may be less well prepared, and this critical weakness may be exploitable through asymmetric approaches on the tactical level. Attacks against allied forces would require the United States to provide support for less capable forces, stretching thin its capability to provide adequate chemical defense coverage for its own forces. At the same time, an attacker might use chemicals against allies instead of against the United States, hoping to avoid a massive response, or at least to create some uncertainty about what the American response might be. Using chemical weapons against tactical U.S. maneuver forces could not change the basic dynamic of a campaign. The use of chemical weapons could only slow the pace of fighting. Employment against allied units or a civilian population that remains on the battlefield could prove to be far more effective. Such an approach might bring an adversary huge political dividends as well, if the United States were unable to correct potential deficits in allied chemical defense training and equipment rapidly or provide immediate succor to threatened civilians. This approach does promise disproportionate effect and might well achieve significant strategic effect through an aggressive information operation.

Many of the considerations regarding nuclear weapons apply also to the use of chemical weapons at the operational level. The most likely targets would be the deployment infrastructure in a theater, command and control facilities, and the combat support and combat service support infrastructure that support the operations of U.S. and allied air forces. Another potential target would be the host-nation population in the theater service area, with the intent of stressing host-nation, allied, and U.S. medical support systems as well as political unity.

Chemical weapons could play a role in strategic attack, which, as with nuclear weapons, means an attack on the U.S. homeland. While they are less lethal than biological agents and not as destructive as nuclear weapons, they are inherently more stable, an important consideration when dealing with less well-trained operatives. They can still be very effective, particularly when employed against indoor and point targets. Chemical weapons do not have the shock and horror of biological or nuclear ones, but that is a relative consideration. A few pounds of VX or Sarin in a busy subway station in New York or Washington would have a tremendous psychological effect. Perhaps the greatest distinction between chemical weapons and nuclear weapons is that tracing the origin of a strategic chemical attack may be more difficult. For this reason, the threshold of employment may be lower than with nuclear weapons.

Chemical weapons are thus the least potent of the WMD triad. They do not have the open-ended potential for disaster of both nuclear and biological weapons. They are easier to produce than nuclear weapons but require a larger and more visible infrastructure than that required for biological agents.³ There are precedents for their use throughout this century, which probably means that they will continue to be employed. Across the spectrum, chemical weapons offer the most asymmetric effect when employed as threats against regional allies. A regional aggressor can expect to be able to threaten the homeland of adjacent states with these weapons. Employment in this manner promises strategic effect at a relatively small cost. Even if an actor carries through on its threats to employ these weapons, it may be careful to avoid U.S. forces, which could make it harder for the Nation to respond forcefully, and possibly crumble a regional alliance.

Biological Weapons

An interesting historical parallel may be developing with the first decade of the 20th century, in which the all-big-gun Dreadnought-class battleship became emblematic of national power. These ships were built or ordered not only by leading powers, such as England, Germany, and the United States, but also by lesser powers, such as Chile, Greece, and Turkey, which had no obvious use for them. As the numbers of these ships grew, however, the dynamics of war at sea changed their utility, and they were supplanted by the aircraft carrier as the ultimate weapon; few were ever employed. In much the same way today, even as lesser states pursue the nuclear totem, nuclear weapons may eventually be relegated to secondary status behind biological weapons, which are cheaper, easier to move or to hide from prying inspectors and, most importantly, profoundly lethal. They can also be employed in a manner that might make it hard to trace sponsorship of an attack.

Biological weapons, like all WMD, are not very effective on the tactical level, for many of the same reasons that pertain to chemical weapons. They are even more volatile and susceptible to biodegradation and corruption than chemical agents. They are also more difficult to disperse over a wide area. The target of a tactical biological weapon attack might be inoculated against the most common agents. In short, on the tactical level, the use of biological weapons is not asymmetric warfare but rather another case of an attack against the strongest part of the defense. The same considerations that apply to the tactical use of chemical weapons apply here. This is not an asymmetric approach, although the use of biological weapons against a civilian population could create problems even more significant than those caused by chemical weapons. The medical stresses, in particular, could prove far more complex and long term.

The use of biological weapons against theater-level targets offers the most lucrative and cost-effective employment option of all forms of WMD use. Biological weapons enjoy the same deterring effect as chemical weapons on the operational level, but they can be far more potent in effect. The threat of anthrax, tularemia, or Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis, for example, against a theater aerial or surface port of debarkation that depends upon host-nation support could have a crippling effect on the flow of U.S. forces into a theater. They have the added advantage over nuclear weapons for the attacker because it would be more difficult for the United States to trace sponsorship of an attack in order to retaliate.

Many airlines, including those mobilized in support of U.S. deployments (the Civil Reserve Air Fleet), may not be able to fly into areas with reported biological weapons attacks.⁴ Without them, it may not be possible to complete the deployment of U.S. forces into a theater of operations. The use of anthrax, for example, in even small quantities might cause heavy casualties and tie up medical and other infrastructure; even the hint of its use, coupled with an aggressive information warfare campaign, might greatly slow the pace of a U.S. strategic deployment.

Biological weapons offer many of the same coercing features of nuclear weapons within a regional environment. Their principal advantage for the attacker would be the potential for attack without attribution. If they were introduced by special operations forces or terrorists, then it might be very difficult for the United States to link a regional actor to a specific attack, however strong the motive and our suspicions. For this reason, they represent ideal asymmetric approaches. While the attack would be operational, the effect would be strategic.

A host of recent movies and books have highlighted the threat of strategic employment of biological weapons, and it is, with nuclear attack, at the most-dangerous end of the scale. When considered for its potential coercing or deterrent value against the United States, this threat has every advantage of the strategic nuclear threat and can be delivered in a more covert manner. For this reason, the firewall between deterrence and use may not be as strong as in the nuclear case; there may be a greater likelihood of employment.

The use of biological weapons by nonstate actors, particularly terrorists, is even more of a threat, although their use is less likely. No mainstream terrorist organization has ever elected to pursue this method of attack.⁵ However, increasingly radical terrorist organizations, including those with millenarian views, may not have this restraint. It is reassuring that the organizational skills, scientific knowledge, and cool heads (and hands) required for the conceptualization and delivery of a biological weapons attack are not normally associated with radical terrorist groups.

Nuclear and biological weapons share an unfortunate feature: they can end the world as we know it. Biological weapons are easier to produce and easier to hide than either nuclear or chemical weapons.⁶ The method of attack can be secret and difficult to trace. When employed to deter potential U.S. involvement in a regional crisis, they can achieve strategic effect, and, like nuclear weapons, cause the United States to weight very carefully the costs and benefits of potential involvement. If threat fails to have its effect, then use offers the advantage of forensic ambiguity. For these reasons, in the short to mid-term, biological weapons will increasingly become the tool of choice for both state and nonstate actors contemplating asymmetric approaches. The likelihood of actual employment is higher in a regional theater of operations than directly against the continental United States, but the implicit threat of use against the continental United States as a deterring or coercive tactic will rise.

Information Operations

The modern U.S. military concept of fighting is built upon the rapid, efficient exchange of vast amounts of information.⁷ In this, it mirrors the explosion of cultural and business information exchange unleashed in the last 20 years by the power of the personal computer and the World Wide Web. This global system supports not only the financial well-being of the United States, but also the operation of an increasing proportion of the physical infrastructure necessary for day-to-day life in the United States, from air traffic control to hydroelectric plant management. Allied with this is the growth of a global culture that fosters the rapid exchange of information on a vast variety of subjects. This is the environment, ripe with both promise and danger, for information operations.⁸

It is difficult for any other country to compete with the United States technologically on the tactical level. Tactical combat information systems are generally well protected and resistant to direct attack. The best asymmetric approaches will probably be passive: camouflage, clutter, and concealment techniques that will make it hard for U.S. intelligence-gathering systems to gain a clear picture of the battlespace. This could be coupled with aggressive deception operations and a psychological warfare campaign that seeks to magnify U.S. missteps. This means taking advantage of the fact that in a world of near-instantaneous global communications, a tactical event can have immediate strategic effect. Denial or degradation of superior U.S. battlefield vision capability, coupled with relentless efforts to gain strategic effect from U.S. tactical missteps, will characterize adversary tactical information operations.

On the operational level, it will become easier to conduct computer network attack against the family of systems, both classified and unclassified, that support the U.S. deployment infrastructure because an increasing percentage of information traffic will be carried on systems external to the Department of Defense. U.S. allies and coalition partners will be at least as vulnerable. Even well-protected defense communications systems are dependent to some degree upon unclassified routing and vulnerable public domain structures.⁹

Adversaries will also target regional allies and any coalition structure with psychological operations and propaganda. When conducted in conjunction with the threat or actual use of other asymmetric approaches (such as WMD), a powerful synergy can result, linking information operations with events on the ground, whether real or imagined. Charles Dunlap has outlined an extreme but thought-provoking scenario in which a regional opponent might elect to employ nuclear weapons against its own population, blaming the United States for the attack.¹⁰ The management of publicly released information will remain a core competency for any crisis. What people see, read, and hear both in the United States and abroad will ultimately shape their perceptions of the rightness or wrongness of the American cause.

A potential cyber attack against the U.S. homeland has probably received more recent media attention than any other form of asymmetric warfare. The United States is both relatively and absolutely more dependent upon computer systems than any other nation in the world for activities ranging from personal banking to management of highways. Some of these systems are protected, most are not, but virtually all are interlinked to some degree that increases their vulnerability.¹¹ Our ability to identify and to defend against these potential attacks is fragmented to some extent simply because of the scope of the threat. It may prove very hard to identify attackers, and the line between criminal activity and state-sponsored attack will be blurred.

High-Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse

Perhaps the most dangerous and misunderstood form of information warfare attack is that of high-altitude EMP: a combination of nuclear weapons and information warfare that can challenge the very heart of U.S. operational doctrine and national political stability. High-altitude EMP results from the explosion of a nuclear weapon detonated above the earth's atmosphere, typically above 30 kilometers.¹² Apart from the fireball, blast, light, and heat, the explosion results in an EMP as gamma-ray energy is converted in the earth's atmosphere to radio frequency energy that propagates toward the earth's surface.¹³

The higher the altitude of the explosion, the less the direct blast effect of the weapon and the greater the indirect effects such as high-altitude EMP will be. Space systems are especially vulnerable.¹⁴ A particularly ominous danger is the fact that an exoatmospheric explosion anywhere over the surface of the earth, even over the attacker's own territory, could affect satellites.¹⁵

Virtually all electronic systems in the United States today are potentially vulnerable to high-altitude EMP: televisions and mainframe computers, telephone systems, aircraft, and satellites.¹⁶ High-altitude EMP can cause malfunction or device failure directly, or it can trigger the system's internal power sources in unintended ways that cause damage.¹⁷

Relatively little of either the commercial or the military world is effectively and verifiably protected. Within DOD, tactical military communications systems are probably the most vulnerable, followed closely by theater command and control architecture. The threat extends to tactical aircraft and, in fact, to any system that uses advanced solid-state electronics to perform basic functions. This encompasses most of the systems in the U.S. military today, from wheeled vehicles to helicopters.¹⁸ "Quite simply, the use of commercial satellites is now so tightly woven into the fabric of our commercial and military endeavors that the consequences of the loss of these assets is unthinkable, yet such loss is a very real possibility." ¹⁹

While the effects of high-altitude EMP may seem arcane, the Soviet Union studied it as an integral part of its strategic warfighting concept during the Cold War and devoted a significant part of its strategic order of battle to achieving decisive high-altitude EMP effects in a general nuclear war.²⁰ It is reasonable to assume that other nations have consulted Soviet analyses.

An exoatmospheric nuclear detonation offers a regional state the ability to apply nuclear weapons in a nonlethal application (a 20-kiloton burst at an altitude of 150 kilometers would produce no visible radiation, blast, or fire effects on the ground) that would have profoundly disruptive effects on U.S. space, air, ground, and sea operations. It could change the character of a theater war from that of a Desert Storm to a Verdun, from an information-rich environment to one in which intelligence would be local in nature and very hard to pass along both laterally and vertically. Most importantly, the use of nuclear weapons in this manner potentially avoids crossing the nuclear Rubicon--a direct attack upon U.S. forces that would bring a clear, unequivocal response. A high-altitude EMP attack is a sideswipe that would force the NCA to reconsider its responses. Is an exoatmospheric nuclear explosion--in which no U.S. personnel die as a direct result--serious enough to warrant a nuclear response against Baghdad, Tehran, or Pyongyang?

Alternative Operational Concepts

In choosing not to compete directly against the United States technologically, potential adversaries may make a conscious attempt to avoid mirroring Western military organizations and approaches to war.²¹ A refusal to adopt Western approaches may go well beyond questions of operational convergence and military effectiveness. The most lucrative potential approach could be to seek advantage by operating well outside the moral framework of the traditional Western approach, rejecting what the United States sees as universal norms of behavior. It might, for example, seek to exploit what is widely believed to be the extreme sensitivity of U.S. society to even minor casualties (not withstanding recent evidence that indicates this may not be so).²²

Regional aggressors or rogue states may choose to view their populations as assets to be expended, using what has been called the "operational maneuver of starving women and children." ²³ If innocent civilians are starving, left exposed to the elements, or attacked, their condition will become of intense interest to the U.S. theater commander. The regional commander in chief will have to take their well-being into account in making operational plans and to be prepared to allocate scarce assets to care for them. This will inevitably become a competing priority with ongoing military operations, because of NGO efforts and the pressures exerted by the CNN effect.

While a combination of technological approaches and innovative tactics can be used against U.S. forces, the best counter may rest in an opponent's battlespace selection. If an opponent can force the fight onto complex urban, mountain, or jungle terrain, U.S. sensors and weapons accuracy will be degraded, and the potential for U.S. casualties will rise. Choosing the right ground may well prove to be the most significant advantage available to an adversary, and U.S. forces may not be able to refuse to enter such killing grounds.²⁴

Other supporting tactical asymmetric approaches might include the use of the civilian population as hostages, as human shields, and as de facto weapons with which to overstress U.S. and allied medical systems. All of these factors will tend to reduce the effectiveness of precision engagement systems, clouding the picture of the battlefield and imposing greater exposure on the Armed Forces. They create the risk of U.S. tactical mistakes, which an effective information operations campaign could then turn to great effect.

Antiaccess efforts can deter, slow, or prevent U.S. forces from entering a theater. The technologies for antiaccess are not new: they range from high-tech to low-tech, from conventional sea-based mines to shoulder-fired surface-to-air and surface-to-surface missiles. Where terrain is unfavorable and U.S. interest is only low to moderate, these approaches may gain powerful advantage. They will tend to be less effective when a vital U.S. national interest is at stake.

Antiaccess measures can be grouped into four broad and overlapping categories: deterring measures, coercing measures, antideployment measures, and anti-invasion measures. They can be either conventional or WMD. The level of U.S. national interest at stake is fundamental to analyzing antiaccess approaches. If the United States seeks access and a vital national interest is at stake, then stopping U.S. forces will be difficult. The loss of a carrier or a number of B-2 bombers, for example, might be acceptable if the objective is important enough. However, such a loss might be enough to deter the United States in situations where its interest is very low.

There is also a hidden and dangerous dynamic at work for the state that makes these calculations: a shocking and successful attack on a U.S. asset may well prove to be the catalyst that drives national interest to a far greater level than it might have otherwise been. The calculation of deterrence will be tricky for potential foes, and the risks of getting it wrong are substantial.

Terrorism

Terrorism is not a perfect fit in this matrix of threats. If terror is the means chosen by a state actor, it fits more or less into all of the previous categories. Here, however, the focus is on nonstate-sponsored groups that operate outside the framework of international relations. Their financial and scientific base will be narrower than those of state-sponsored organizations, but this is compensated for by their readiness to select more radical techniques that would be suicidal for groups linked to states.

The rise of the United States as the global lightning rod, coupled with the growing availability of weapons that promise massive and visible results with minimal outlay, means that the potential for nonstate actors to threaten use of weapons formerly reserved for states is clear and growing. The Cold War formula of the least-likely-is-most-dangerous is fast eroding, and many unsavory scenarios can be imagined that are all reasonably likely to occur.

Summing Up Asymmetric Threats

Two principal conclusions can be drawn from this examination of asymmetry. First, a number of potential adversaries are exploring strategies, the most dangerous and threatening of which are usually based on the acquisition of WMD, that may narrow certain gaps with the United States. The second observation deals with the relative importance of WMD within the typology of asymmetry. It is inviting to reduce the asymmetric argument to a discussion of the strategic WMD threat to the U.S. homeland. This is a dangerous oversimplification because, while it captures the most destructive and frightening end of the asymmetric spectrum, it also ignores a number of far more likely applications of asymmetry. Weapons--regardless of the type--are themselves of less importance than the effect they create in the mind of the attacked. There are also other ways besides WMD to achieve similar effects. We should not limit our thinking about how to defend against asymmetric approaches to an overly narrow band that encompasses only the most dangerous weapons.

What Are the Worst Asymmetric Threats?

This section distinguishes the most dangerous threats to the United States. It is difficult to plan for threats unless we differentiate between them, to lend structure and a comparative approach to asymmetric threats and heed the caution that "we should not spend more time inventing asymmetric options for other states than those states' leaderships do themselves." ²⁵ Ten threats are identified, based on the recurring themes developed in this chapter. They are not ranked, and none is singled out as "most dangerous" to the United States; they are all dangerous. They also represent other threats that have not been included; they outline the spectrum of potential asymmetric threats about which U.S. policy decisions can be crafted.

Nuclear or Biological Attack on U.S. Soil

The first asymmetric approach considered is the threat of a nuclear or biological attack against the American homeland. Such an attack threatens the greatest damage. Possession of nuclear or biological weapons and means of delivery thus gives a regional "ompetitor or a rogue state a credible means of influencing U.S. decisionmakers. This is true disproportionate effect. Any Presidential decisionmaking process will be constrained when an enemy possesses the credible capability to deliver a nuclear or biological countervalue attack on the United States.

Particularly under circumstances when a national interest of the United States is not unambiguously involved, this type of threat would severely compress the U.S. range of options.²⁶ This is a threat that operates almost purely at the strategic level of war. As a threat, this is both a highly dangerous possibility and one that is increasingly likely, and for these reasons this alternative is the only asymmetric approach considered among these ten that is based on the principle of coercion and that might not involve actual use of a weapon. It is the threat of attack that coerces or deters potential American action in this case. An actual attack would surrender many of the advantages of an asymmetric approach.

The threat of such an attack could include either covert or conventional means. Conventional means--cruise or ballistic missiles or manned aircraft--are less likely as a means of delivery for a non-peer competitor. Technological considerations alone would make it difficult to deliver such a weapon to the continental United States, and the trail back to the source would be clear and unequivocal. An alternative is the covert infiltration of a nuclear weapon or a biological weapon into a major urban center. The possibility of an irrational state actor cannot be discounted, however, when the stakes are so very high and the delivery of a small number of nuclear weapons by ballistic missiles should be considered a viable, though less likely, lesser included case of this threat.

Crossing the line between threat and actual attack would be a very dangerous step for any state. For this reason, coercive asymmetric approaches of this nature might be coupled with an intensive diplomatic campaign and information operations designed to achieve limited results below the threshold of actual use.

Information Warfare Attack

A concerted information warfare attack against our national information systems infrastructure would probably include information management systems vital for the operation of the critical infrastructures of public safety, transportation, and banking and finance. Such an attack could run the gamut from attacks of precision disruption aimed at specific elements of infrastructure (air traffic control systems, for example) to a broadly disruptive attack based on high-altitude EMP.²⁷ The relative likelihood of such an attack is high, given the level of U.S. dependence upon such systems. The potential damage could be severe, but it would probably not approach the devastation possible from a nuclear or biological attack; however, a high-altitude EMP strategic attack on the United States could be devastating to the entire national information infrastructure. Because of the combination of opportunity and vulnerability, this is assessed as a very real threat whose potential scope will only grow with time. Such an attack targets the will of the United States by operating directly against the civil population. It has disproportionate effect and, if used as a threat or coercing tactic, could have many of the deterring advantages of nuclear and biological weapons.

Biological and Chemical Attacks

Biological and chemical attacks against host-nation support and alliance forces in a theater would have the dual goals of splitting a coalition and eroding national will in the United States. An attack of this nature would seek to exploit weaker elements of a coalition by attacking principally with biological and chemical weapons. The relative likelihood of this form of attack is high in an MTW environment, and the relative danger to U.S. and allied forces is high. Because of its potential effectiveness, the threat of this form of attack could also be used to coerce potential regional allies in the early days of a crisis.

Such an attack--or threat of an attack--would be directed against the weakest elements of any coalition or host nation. It would strictly avoid targeting U.S. forces and would instead be directed against the personnel who are the vital theater enablers for U.S. forces. The most lucrative form of this attack might be to target civilians crucial to offloading U.S. equipment as it enters a theater. They would not be under military discipline, would not likely have had any NBC training, nor would they have much or any protective equipment, such as the inoculations that U.S. and allied forces presumably will have had. These workers are the Achilles' heel of any theater that will require the heavy flow of U.S. forces through a limited number of ports of entry, either air or sea.

If the will of regional allies can be degraded by these threats or by actual employment, then it could have a pernicious effect on the will of the United States to participate. A regional aggressor might achieve its goals by threats, but the line from threat to employment is easier to cross within a regional scenario and when the primary targets will not be U.S. forces.

WMD Attacks against Deployment Systems

WMD attacks could be mounted against strategic deployment systems, including air and sea ports of debarkation in theater, en-route facilities, and enabling infrastructure. The primary threat is that of chemical and biological weapons. The relative likelihood of such an attack is high in a major or near-MTW scenario. The potential for damage is high. Many of the considerations that apply to attacks on allied and coalition forces are also operative here. There are also some greater risks because in this case the attack is now being delivered directly against U.S. forces as they enter a theater.

An attack of this nature would be a central component of an antiaccess strategy that would seek to slow the arrival of U.S. forces into a theater. Chemical attacks would be the least effective but easiest to execute, while biological warfare attacks could gain high leverage. It would not take more than a very small biological attack, coupled with an aggressive information operations plan, to disrupt severely the large number of non-military enabling systems that support the deployment architecture. A lesser-included case or alternative form of attack could be the aggressive employment of conventional special operations forces and perhaps terrorists who operate against the deployment infrastructure without using WMD.

Information Warfare

Information warfare includes the threat of high-altitude EMP attack against forces in a theater. This is a potent threat across the spectrum of information operations, but the most dangerous form is the use of high-altitude EMP to degrade U.S. and allied capability to achieve information dominance. The relative likelihood of this form of attack is moderate--the technical requirements to prosecute such an attack successfully are daunting--but the danger to U.S. forces would be very high if the attack were successful.

As a general principle, offensive information warfare will grow less fruitful for an opponent as the level of warfare moves from strategic to tactical. It is harder to enter U.S. tactical computing systems, and a variety of aggressive U.S. defensive information operations will also be taking place. The use of high-altitude EMP at a tactical level, however, maximizes the advantages of disruption inherent in this weapon while minimizing the provocation of an attack on or above U.S. soil with nuclear weapons. States that possess nuclear weapons and delivery systems will also have the potential deterrence benefit that accrues from this capability. In actual operation, however, this threat would exist below the strategic level, although favorable strategic effects could be secured by operations that follow such an attack.

Battlespace Selection

Opponents may force the United States to fight in places where its information and other forms of superiority are blunted. An opponent would seek to lengthen U.S. operations in time while maximizing opportunities for American casualties. The relative likelihood of this method of attack is high--if the terrain will support it--and the potential for danger is also high. As the world becomes more urbanized, the Armed Forces will often be forced to enter and to operate in such terrain, perhaps most of the time. The examples of Stalingrad, Hue City, Manila, and Mogadishu are clear and evident.

Antiaccess Measures without WMD

Non-WMD antiaccess measures include mines, missiles, and other tried-and-true measures to slow deployment or forcible-entry operations. The relative likelihood of these tactics being employed is high, and the potential for damage at the operational level is also high. This approach relies on legacy systems from the Cold War along with newly emerging systems to prevent the entry of amphibious, airborne, or air forces. It is a tactic that has limited opportunity for success unless applied in concert with other measures. This has the greatest chance of success in a small-scale contingency, where there is no direct U.S. vital national interest at stake.

Warrior Tactics

Fighting methods and conduct on or around the battlefield--or warrior tactics--grossly violate generally accepted norms in an attempt to shock and to disrupt an opponent. There is a growing belief, perhaps inaccurate, that the United States is uniquely vulnerable to this approach to fighting. The premium placed on force protection and a current emphasis in U.S. planning on no or low casualties tends to reinforce the attractiveness of an approach that would disregard casualties in an attempt to gain an advantage in a regional conflict. The relative likelihood of such tactics being employed is high, and the potential for damage to U.S. forces is moderate, although it is far from certain that such a primitivist approach could offset significant U.S. technological and training advantages.

Chemical Attack against CONUS

The potential for chemical attack is often left in the shadow of the biological warfare threat to the homeland, but it is a distinctly separate threat, with a slightly higher relative likelihood of being employed. It is more likely because it is easier to introduce chemical weapons into the United States than nuclear weapons, and it does not draw the international revulsion that attends biological weapons. The potential for large-scale damage to the United States, however, is low. This is a less likely alternative for state actors than for nonstate actors with limited resources and delivery alternatives.

Wildcards

The last asymmetric threat is the one that we cannot even envision: the wildcard. Threats will emerge that we cannot plan for. While most of them will be reactions to the specific weapons systems and operational principles the United States employs, they will take root in the fertile soil of their own unique culture and experience and may prove to be the most dangerous of all.

Addressing Asymmetric Threats

Broad disparities in level of effort, interest, and potential effectiveness mark current U.S. responses to asymmetric threats. No overarching or coherent theme ties all elements of potential asymmetric countermeasures together. This lack of a unifying theme follows from the differing definitions of asymmetry that have influenced policies. Improving our responses to the asymmetric threat must begin with adoption of a consistent philosophy of how to deal with asymmetry, based upon a consistent definition. Such a philosophy can be derived from the themes laid out in this study.

To counter asymmetric threats effectively, our policies need to reflect three interlinked concepts. First, our policies should minimize U.S. vulnerabilities to asymmetric attack by deterring potential attackers and by having the capability to defend successfully against asymmetric attacks on both deployed forces and the homeland if deterrence were to fail. Should an asymmetric attack prove successful, we need demonstrated competency in consequence management at home and the operational flexibility to prevail in the face of asymmetric attack on deployed forces. Such capabilities will tend to make asymmetric attacks less attractive to potential adversaries.

Second, our policies should accentuate our unique strengths by continuing to pursue transformation and modernization objectives such as those expressed in Joint Vision 2020 and its successor documents. In doing this, we must avoid overreacting to asymmetric threats. The American way of war, emphasizing speed, shock, and rapid battlespace dominance, is inherently asymmetric itself when compared to the capabilities of most potential opponents. Our way of war works, and we do not need to overcorrect in attempting to anticipate asymmetric approaches.

Third, in dealing with asymmetric threats, it will be critical to prevent disproportionate effects. This is the heart of asymmetric advantage, and it must be countered at all levels of war; preventing tactical and operational effects from modifying our strategies is the most important component of this approach. For the United States, disparity of interest with a broad range of potential opponents is an enduring reality. As long as we remain a global power with many strategic interests, some interests will always be less important than others. DOD must, in dealing with the issue of asymmetric warfare, ensure that U.S. foreign policy options are not artificially circumscribed by state or nonstate actors who seek, by threat or action, to impose a disproportionately high price on our continued engagement.

A number of specific actions to implement this objective are grouped under the three organizing ideas: minimizing vulnerabilities, accentuating unique strengths, and preventing disproportionate effects. When a proposed action falls partially or wholly outside DOD, this is noted. Some will require action from departments and agencies across the Federal government, as well as state and local governments.

Actions to Minimize Vulnerabilities

To reduce vulnerabilities, immediate action to reduce the direct threat of strategic attack against the American homeland is important. This might include early deployment of an effective limited national missile defense (NMD) system capable of high-confidence interception of small numbers of intercontinental ballistic missiles.²⁸ This would counter the threat of direct attack on the United States homeland with ballistic-missile-delivered WMD. Such a defense would limit, however, only one potential avenue of attack for an aggressor, who might still choose to employ other covert means to attack the United States with WMD.²⁹ A ballistic missile defense system should, therefore, be part of a comprehensive approach to strategic defense that also comprises a broad range of counterproliferation initiatives, an explicit deterrence strategy, and a variety of activities designed to prevent or minimize the possibility and consequences of a covert attack.

The United States can also reduce the threat of direct or covert WMD attack on the homeland by demonstrating a capability for consequence management. For example, under the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici program, first responder training could be doubled from its current level of 120 cities to at least 240 cities.³⁰ Larger cities may need larger teams, and perhaps more of them. The existing system for regional stockpiling of medical equipment and medicines, the responsibility of the Centers for Disease Control, could be expanded, based on updates from the intelligence community. This system could include improved methods for inventory control and contingency plans for rapid movement and concentration of these resources. Significant improvements have been made in the level of epidemiological monitoring within the United States. Such continued efforts would be helpful in more rapid detection of a covert biological or chemical attack.

Long-term DOD support for local and state agencies for consequence management (CM) can come primarily from the Reserve components, and over time, elements of the Army National Guard may be restructured to reflect this.³¹ This can be accomplished by dual-missioning in the short term; ultimately, however, the requirement for WMD response and CM in the continental United States could well evolve into a primary mission for the National Guard. This is a natural choice because of the long affiliation between the National Guard and local governmental structures, and its ultimate responsibility for the defense of the United States.³²

The capability of the National Guard to assist in routine and contingency planning for CM activities and in incident response should be enhanced. Incident response would include support for command, control, communications, and computer infrastructure, augmentation of physical security, emergency mobile medical assets, nuclear, biological, and chemical reconnaissance, and mass evacuation operations if required.³³

The capability to deploy from the United States for some of these forces will thus become of lower priority. First call on designated elements of the National Guard force structure may eventually be linked to requirements for WMD (and other) CM within the United States, and only secondarily to any requirement to deploy on short notice in support of theater contingency plans. This will require a huge change in thinking on the part of the National Guard; it will need to reorient inward, despite resistance to this idea.

Under this proposal, the highest priority for the National Guard would be pre-attack, attack management, and post-attack CM within U.S. borders. The National Guard would still retain the ability to support limited rotational deployments overseas in support of the active component and would still have a strategic reserve mission, but it would no longer be explicitly linked to short-term regional warfighting operations plans. The restructuring of the National Guard would increase the numbers of low-density, high-demand units critical to CM: chemical, medical, military police, and other combat service support capabilities.

The first step toward this end could be a detailed analysis of what would be required to make such a broad change in thinking, capabilities, and supporting structure. Such an analysis would of necessity encompass more than just the National Guard because of its growing role in rotational deployments in support of peace, humanitarian, and other operations. The increasing percentage of critical combat service support force structure embedded in the Reserve components will need to be reevaluated. The comprehensive restructuring of the Army invites a parallel renaissance in the National Guard. These changes would reaffirm the longstanding relationship between the American people and the National Guard and return something directly to the communities with which these Reserve forces are affiliated.

Specific Actions to Accentuate Unique Strengths

The United States should take immediate steps at the interagency level to improve its strategic intelligence posture that monitors the global environment and actively scouts for potential asymmetric approaches that might threaten it. This effort should go beyond traditional adversaries and examine new threats that may arise. The earlier that we can sense wildcards, the more effective our response will be. In many cases, the knowledge that we are looking and listening will itself be a deterrent.

This would require substantial retooling of our technological base for information collection as we listen to a world that is increasingly encrypted and less dependent upon broadcast signals.³⁴ The qualitative edge in electronic monitoring that the United States enjoyed for so long has evaporated, and we may never be able to fully recover it. The expanded use of human intelligence will only begin to fill this void.³⁵

A key element of intelligence gathering is ensuring that it is ultimately disseminated to those who need it, both within the United States and among our allies. This is typically the greatest weakness of any intelligence program. Part of this expanded dissemination must be the continuous process of sharing with allies and likely coalition partners the latest available information on and counters to potential asymmetric threats. We need to take steps to assure that we will have continued access to those areas where we may be called upon to deploy in order to deter or to fight. These might include fielding effective theater ballistic missile defense systems, both upper and lower tier, to provide high-confidence coverage of arrival airfields and ports, their associated assembly areas, airbases, critical host nation support infrastructure, and both U.S. and allied land- and sea-based forces.³⁶ Through military-to-military contacts with allies and potential coalition partners, we should ensure that a common competency in nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) protection is established and maintained and that procedures are established and rehearsed as integral parts of CINC plans for combined measures to be taken in the event of NBC attack. This should include the common provision of a single standard of prophylaxis across a combined force. We should also continue to develop the tactics, techniques, and procedures and the associated equipment necessary to ensure continued access for amphibious, air-delivered, and air forces in environments across the spectrum of engagement, from benign to forcible entry.

For air forces, such an approach would translate into a continual refinement and improvement of the ability to destroy or to degrade enemy air defenses, particularly against a foe that chooses to employ its weapons in innovative and nontraditional ways. "The SEAD [suppression of enemy air defenses] capability that we've built in the U.S. Air Force is a little bit dependent on the enemy fully utilizing his assets--if they're not emitting, then you're not suppressing very much." ³⁷ Functionally, this means that we need to have a destruction of enemy air defenses (DEAD) capability as well as a suppression capability. We should also continue to explore the technical and tactical feasibility of extreme long-range air operations for circumstances when the threat will require distant basing.

For ground forces, the principal requirement will be the ability to conduct forcible-entry operations and subsequent logistical sustainment in extremely austere environments, potentially with an extended across-the-beach or limited airhead flow of supplies for lengthy periods. The top-to-bottom reassessment of Army organization will yield a force that is both lighter and significantly more deployable than the current one. Aside from parachute infantry and air assault forces, how this force will integrate into forcible entry operations remains to be fully resolved, in terms of equipment, doctrine, and structure.

For naval forces, the ability to defeat the mine, cruise missile, small fast attack craft, and coastal submarine threat, and to ensure safe passage for amphibious, surface fire support, and follow-on logistics ships will be paramount.³⁸ Mines remain the principal threat to both warfighting and sustainment vessels, and the current program of eight antimine assigned systems (one submarine-launched, one surface-combatant-launched, and six helicopter-launched) will be critical in correcting this long-term deficiency.

All joint forces must also be prepared to conduct operations for extended periods of time in hazardous chemical and biological environments and to overcome this challenge through protective measures on the ground, in the air, and at sea.

In concert with industry, we should ensure that all future military and specific civil communications and satellite systems emphasize radiation-tolerant microelectronics. This would include all satellites launched by the United States, not just military-specific systems. It is not fiscally feasible to harden all, or perhaps even all military, satellites against direct (that is, kinetic or directed energy) attack, but satellite systems can have higher levels of environmental protection designed to counter high-altitude EMP. Total costs have been estimated at between 1 and 5 percent.³⁹ Selective retrofitting of critical U.S. theater and tactical level communications systems should also be undertaken to protect against high-altitude EMP. This cost will be significantly higher, as much as 10 percent of each program, reflecting the difficulty and greater expense of modifying existing systems. This decision needs careful study of what systems are necessary to execute Joint Vision 2020, which depends on the ability to share a common operational picture of the battlefield and requires assured broad-bandwidth communication.

Rejuvenating the radiation-tolerant microelectronics industry will require a significant government-defense industry partnership and efforts to make it financially attractive for nonmilitary satellites to incorporate hardening into their design. This will not be cheap since hardening requires new electronics and additional weight, which are both expensive in a system to be launched into space.

While the interagency process for dealing with the consequences of mass catastrophic terrorism in the United States has been refined and improved with the establishment of a central coordinator within the White House, particular emphasis should be placed on the nature of the support DOD will provide in such an event. This is particularly important regarding the utilization of low-density, high-demand units and equipment in the Reserve and active components, such as chemical decontamination and medical support elements that might be needed at the same time for contingencies outside of the United States. DOD should articulate explicitly how it will support the civilian government when faced with a catastrophic attack on the United States. The time of greatest danger for an attack on the continental United States might be during a significant international crisis in which many of our forces are deployed abroad. In this instance, worst-case planning is prudent.

DOD should begin this process by ensuring that all theater contingency plans are thoroughly coordinated through the Joint Staff; that potential conflicting claims by theater CINCs and homeland defense on LD/HD assets and on stored equipment and supplies unique to catastrophic management are reconciled and prioritized; and that associated risks are assessed and articulated. This reconciliation, prioritization, and risk assessment should be articulated and agreed at the interagency level.

We should also be red-teaming our own capabilities so that we have an accurate net assessment of our strengths and weaknesses. This is an important effort that requires protection and continuity and should be located outside the intelligence community, although it must have strong ties to it. For such an organization to have credibility, it must possess not only analytic capabilities, but also operational respectability; it must be staffed with operators as well as analysts. It must also have access, and thus high-level sponsorship. There is a need for such red-teaming on every level: the services, Joint Staff, and combatant commands. On the Joint Staff, such an organization would be charged with review of plans and operational concepts from an adversarial, intelligence-based, and operationally validated perspective. Similar organizations might prove useful within each regional and functional combatant command. The services have strong vested interests in looking ahead at alternative futures and in continually refining their responsibilities. They should continue those efforts.

Specific Actions to Prevent Disproportionate Effect

It has been argued throughout this analysis that the ultimate goal of any asymmetric approach is to seek strategic effect against the will of the opponent. This can be achieved through deterrence or coercion, or--once battle is joined--through such approaches as warrior tactics and battlespace selection. While every action recommended to this point will tend to contribute to the reduction of this effect, the most important step that can be taken in this regard is for the leadership to explain clearly to the American people the purpose of an operation. While it has become conventional wisdom in some circles that the people of the United States will not accept even minimal casualties in military operations far from home, the truth is actually more complex. If the goals and objectives of American involvement in operations abroad are clearly and explicitly explained, support at home is likely to be both broad and deep. Telling the American people why their fighting men and women are in harm's way will be ever more important in a world in which the hierarchy of information is getting flatter. Other advocates, perhaps unfriendly to our interests, will also be telling their side of the story. We must take advantage of every opportunity to explain what we are doing, and we must do it better than our potential opponents.

Conclusion

The proposals outlined above argue for the continuation and refinement of existing programs, and in some cases for the adoption of new ones. Some have obvious benefits but will require presidential decision (for example, the deployment of an NMD) because of the larger political and diplomatic consequences. Some will require the breaking of long-held paradigms (for example, the role of the National Guard). These will be difficult choices.

While significant sums have been spent and are now currently programmed, a decision to deploy an NMD would require significant future commitment of resources. Of lesser but still significant fiscal impact is the recommendation to improve and to protect our information architecture from high-altitude EMP. The single recommendation having the greatest potential domestic political volatility, as well as significant fiscal impact, is the recommendation to retool elements of the Army National Guard for the domestic CM threat.

The objective of these recommendations is to gain the best competitive advantage for our nation at the least cost--in human life and national treasure--in a strategic environment in which our interest in any given engagement may not be as great as our adversary's. In preparing for this environment, it is important that we do not design our responses so narrowly that we become prisoners of our own actions. For that reason, these recommendations have sought to fulfill a basic responsibility of civil government--the protection of its citizens and their property--without becoming fixated on the defense of the United States homeland as the beginning and end of the asymmetric threat. The dual objectives of protecting our citizens at home while advancing American interests abroad form the most effective possible response to asymmetric threats.

Notes

 ¹From Robert G. Joseph and John F. Reichart, Deterrence and Defense in a Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Environment, Occasional Paper of the Center for Counterproliferation Research (Washington, DC: National Defense University, Institute for National Strategic Studies, 1995), 4. [BACK]

 ²Richard A. Falkenrath et al., America's Achilles' Heel: Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Terrorism and Covert Attack (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998), 226-227. [BACK]

 ³See U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Technologies Underlying Weapons of Mass Destruction, OTA-BP-ISC-115 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1993), 77-81 and throughout, for an excellent discussion. [BACK]

 ⁴See R. J. Larsen and R. P. Kadlec, Biological Warfare: A Post Cold War Threat to America's Strategic Mobility Forces (Pittsburgh: Matthew B. Ridgway Center for International Security Studies, University of Pittsburgh, 1995), 12 and throughout, for an excellent discussion of the strategic mobility threat posed by these weapons. [BACK]

 ⁵Falkenrath et al., America's Achilles' Heel, 46-59. [BACK]

 ⁶Office of Technology Assessment, Technologies, 8. [BACK]

 ⁷Henry H. Shelton, Information Operations: A Strategy for Peace, The Decisive Edge in War (Washington, DC: The Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1999). [BACK]

 ⁸Two recent survey works on the current state of information operations are Zalmay Khalilzad and John P. White, eds., The Changing Role of Information in Warfare (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1999); and John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, eds., In Athena's Camp: Preparing for Conflict in the Information Age (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1997). [BACK]

 ⁹Bob Brewin, "Pentagon Hit by 'World Wide Wait'," Federal Computer Week, November 15, 1999, 1. [BACK]

¹⁰Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., "How We Lost the High-Tech War of 2007," The Weekly Standard, January 29, 1996, 22-28. [BACK]

¹¹Robert T. Marsh et al., Critical Foundations: Protecting America's Infrastructures: The Report of the President's Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection (Washington, DC: The President's Commission on Infrastructure Protection, 1997) (Hereafter referred to as the Marsh Report). [BACK]

¹²Discussion in this section is largely based on Samuel Glasstone and Philip J. Dolan, eds., The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, 3d ed. (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 1977), chapters X, "Radar and Radio Effects," and XI, "The Electromagnetic Pulse and its Effects"; and S.J. McGrath, "The Electromagnetic Pulse Environment and Its Influence on Tactical Electronic and Communications Equipment," unpublished thesis for MS in Telecommunications, Naval Postgraduate School, Coronado, CA, March 1992. [BACK]

¹³Glasstone and Dolan, Effects of Nuclear Weapons, 515. [BACK]

¹⁴Ibid., 518. [BACK]

¹⁵R.C. Webb et al., "The Commercial and Military Satellite Survivability Crisis," Defense Electronics, August 1995, 24. Martin C. Libicki, Illuminating Tomorrow's War, McNair Paper 61 (Washington, DC: National Defense University, Institute for National Strategic Studies, October 1999), 14, warns that: "The few really good eyes in the U.S. space inventory may be vulnerable to attack." [BACK]

¹⁶See Andrew Koch, "Interview: Dr. Jay Davis, Director of the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA)," Jane's Defence Weekly, February 16, 2000, 32: "An EMP attack 'is technically quite simple to do with a relatively crude nuclear weapon' . . . . 'If you look at the effects of that on our communications and telecommunications systems, and if you look at the more problematic effect of EMP from a high-altitude burst over U.S. forces or over part of the USA, it becomes an attractive equalizer for a less sophisticated military opponent or even a terrorist.'" [BACK]

¹⁷Glasstone and Dolan, Effects of Nuclear Weapons, 520-532. [BACK]

¹⁸See Bruce D. Nordwell, "EMP, High-Powered Microwaves Pose New EW Threat to Aircraft," Aviation Week and Space Technology, October 26, 1998, 68. [BACK]

¹⁹Webb, "The Commercial and Military Satellite Survivability Crisis," 21. [BACK]

²⁰Ibid. [BACK]

²¹See Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., "21st Century Land Warfare: Four Dangerous Myths," Landpower in the 21st Century: Preparing for Conflict (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, April 1998), 83-93. [BACK]

²²Peter D. Feaver and Christopher Gelpi, "How Many Deaths Are Acceptable? A Surprising Answer," The Washington Post, November 7, 1999, B3, describe the results of the Triangle Institute for Security Studies Casualty Aversion Survey, conducted from September 1998 through June 1999. [BACK]

²³This term was used in a briefing at Headquarters, Task Force Eagle, 1st Cavalry Division, Tuzla, Bosnia, January 1999. [BACK]

²⁴See Libicki, Illuminating Tomorrow's War, 47-50 for a thoughtful discussion of this problem. [BACK]

²⁵Paul F. Herman, "Asymmetric Warfare: Sizing the Threat," Low Intensity Conflict and Law Enforcement 6, no. 1 (Summer 1997): 180. This excellent article clarifies the conceptual underpinnings of asymmetric warfare. [BACK]

²⁶A good summary of this can be found in Brad C. Roberts, "From Nonproliferation to Antiproliferation," International Security (Summer 1993): 158: "In the United States, proliferation is likely to sharpen the debate about vital versus peripheral national interests, undermine the political support for military intervention, or even long term engagement, increase U.S. vulnerability to coercive diplomacy by regional actors, and narrow the room for maneuver in [the] international environment." [BACK]

²⁷E. Anders Eriksson, "Viewpoint: Information Warfare: Hype or Reality?" The Nonproliferation Review 6, no. 3 (Spring/Summer 1999), 57-64. [BACK]

²⁸Deployment decisions about what the best missile defense system would be--ground-based, space-based, in-theater (boost-phase), or post-boost-phase--are beyond the scope of this study. [BACK]

²⁹Two differing perspectives on the NMD issue can be found in Henry A. Kissinger, "The Next President's First Obligation," The Washington Post, February 9, 2000, 21; and George N. Lewis, Lisbeth Gronlund, and David C. Wright, "National Missile Defense: An Indefensible System," Foreign Policy 117 (Winter 1999-2000), 120-131. [BACK]

³⁰This program provides funds and training support to create a nucleus of local personnel able to respond effectively to large-scale consequence management contingencies. [BACK]

³¹See the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Reserve Component Employment Study 2005, Study Report (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, July 1999). [BACK]

³²This builds on recommendations in the 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review, the Reserve Component Study completed in 1999, and the 1999 Report to the National Guard Bureau Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Study (Washington, DC: Science Applications International Corporation, February 1999). When in a state-supporting role, the Guard is exempt from the provisions of the posse comitatus statute (18 U.S.C. 1385), which prohibit Federal military forces from performing law enforcement duties. [BACK]

³³OSD, Reserve Component Study, C-1, 2. The 1999 Report to the National Guard Bureau Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Study, 4, identified 141 potential support roles for the National Guard, and then refined them to "47 mission consistent potential National Guard WMD response support roles." [BACK]

³⁴See Seymour M. Hersh, "The Intelligence Gap," The New Yorker, December 6, 1999, 58-67, for a discussion of the challenges facing the National Security Agency (NSA). For example, "the North Koreans . . . have bought encrypted phones from Europe, high-speed switching gear from Britain, and up-to-date dialing service from America--a system the NSA cannot readily read." A U.S. intelligence official was quoted as saying of the North Koreans that "All their military stuff went off ether into fiber--from high frequency radio transmission to fiber-optic cable lines," capable of carrying much more traffic than any radio transmission, and not readily read by external monitoring systems. Douglas Farah, "New Drug Smugglers Hold Tech Advantage," The Washington Post, November 15, 1999, 1, outlines some of the encryption techniques readily available to well-funded transnational criminal organizations. [BACK]

³⁵Falkenrath et al., America's Achilles' Heel, 282-286, makes some of these recommendations in chapter 5, "Recommendations: An Agenda for the American Government." [BACK]

³⁶In the TMD arena, the Army PAC-3 and the Navy Area Defense systems are already budgeted. [BACK]

³⁷Major General Bruce Carlson, USAF, quoted in John A. Tirpak, "Dealing With Air Defenses," Air Force Magazine, November 1999, 26. [BACK]

³⁸Unattributed, "Navy Mine Warfare Official Warns 'Judgment Day' Is Coming," Inside the Navy, November 22, 1999, 7. [BACK]

³⁹Joseph C. Anselmo, "U.S. Seen More Vulnerable to Electromagnetic Attack," Aviation Week and Space Technology, July 28, 1997, 67. [BACK]