Wargaming for peace Posted by Lorelei Kelly

Democrat of the Week:  Representative David Price (NC) who introduced a bill late Thursday that would require the federal government to give better guidance to private military contactors and to collect information on cost, personnel, and casualties. These requirements address concerns raised by the contractors themselves, and they were highlighted in a GAO report that Congressman Price also requested.

This past Monday, I had the pleasure of teaching a class at the Army War College Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute. My charge was to lead a discussion about national security decision making in the US Congress. With the 300 billion dollar costs of  Iraq and Afghanistan serving as a backdrop, the most consistent theme of the discussion was Congress’ inability to perform a central duty: oversight on matters of  budget and national security.   Through our discussion one theme stood out: the GWOT (global war on terror) is both over-militarized and under-resourced.

Military doctrine points to four instruments of national power: DImE.  This stands for  Diplomacy, Information, military and Economics.  The military is not capitalized to make a point: it is always supposed to be the tool of last resort—after the other instruments have been exhausted.   A typical federal budget funds the military at sixteen times the rate of all other foreign policy tools combined. Indeed, today’s defense budget, adjusted for inflation, is 12% larger than typical Cold War era budgets. This serious and worsening imbalance between our national instruments of power is not lost on the Army. In fact, there is increasing realization that in order to relieve itself of some of the burdens of both war and post-conflict peacemaking, the military may have to go to bat for other agencies when budget time rolls around.  This would be astounding. It also might be the only way to turn the tide of what Andrew Bacevich calls the new American militarism.

This week the War College also happened to be hosting a wargame called “Unified Quest 05” so I sat in on one of the overview briefings.  I actually played in Unified Quest two years ago, so I was encouraged to see that many of the lessons of past years were deliberately inserted into this year’s gameplan.

The Army has progressed light-years since the 1990’s when the National Training Center was still playing blue on red (US versus USSR) maneuver warfare. (for example, vast mechanized forces meeting on the plains of Poland).  This year’s game highlighted three areas of focus: conflict prevention and deterrence, stability operations, and irregular warfare. Now, major areas of investigation include governance, humanitarian crisis and consequence management.  Achieving political success is another important factor—which leads to perhaps the most important innovation in today’s wargame: a separate assessment team that is neither red nor blue—that focuses on the civilian populations of either side.  This is significant:  It helps close the gap between military action and political consequence (i.e. flatten Fallujah and set yourself back months on the "hearts and minds" campaign). Definitely not touchy-feely, but a sure sign of the Army’s emotional intelligence. They are becoming aware of the fact that lasting, meaningful relationships are keys to success.

A large portion of the officers attending the War College these days have served in either Iraq or Afghanistan and so they increasingly bring ground-truth perspectives to these discussions.   Progressives need to encourage this kind of forward-thinking by the military by re-claiming democracy arguments—chief among them conflict prevention.  The big challenge is how we take the raw knowledge and momentum that is currently preoccupied with post-conflict reconstruction and use it to make the case for preventive action. After all, if good governance is important after pre-emptive war, why not avoid the war altogether and focus on institutions and democracy as part of a balanced DImE?

Both civilian and military organizations have, for years, asked the question: how do we make prevention operational? During the 1990’s the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict invested considerable resources in parsing apart the dilemmas of prevention. Since the end of the Cold War, the military has taken some creative initiatives: During the 1990’s the National Defense Panel outlined a strategy of “shaping stability”. Former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry co-authored a book on Preventive Defense and the Naval War College initiated a study on Formative Engagement to cite just three examples.

How this issue is framed will be vital.  The progressive perspective must include long-term considerations, where actions have implications over time and  therefore values leaders who understand the importance of relationships and context. The raw material is all over the place.  The progressive task is not one of documentation, but packaging.

When I taught conflict resolution classes many years ago, we distinguished between two types of power: Power as forceful dominance versus Power as the ability to influence change.   Therein lies the difference between pre-emptive war and a progressive democracy policy.

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