The Committee of Public Safety

Zenpundit writes an excellent post (The Kilcullen Doctrine) which is followed by an excellent response (New Doctrines Without Strategic Foundations) from Galhran over at Information Dissemination. Zen argues that Lt. Col. John Nagl (ret) has distilled the insights of COIN expert Dr. David Kilcullen’s new book The Accidental Guerrilla into a “digestible set of memes sized exactly right for the journalistic and governmental elite whose eyes glaze over at the mention of military jargon and who approach national security from a distinctly civilian and political perspective”. Nagl’s compressed version goes something like this:

….In direct opposition to the ideas that drove American intervention policy two decades ago, Kilcullen suggests ‘the anti -Powell doctrine’ for counter-insurgency campaigns.

• First, planners should select the lightest, most indirect and least intrusive form of intervention that will achieve the necessary effect.
• Second, policy-makers should work by, with, and through partnerships with local government administrators, civil society leaders, and local security forces whenever possible.
• Third, whenever possible, civilian agencies are preferable to military intervention forces, local nationals to international forces, and long-term, low-profile engagement to short-term, high-profile intervention.

Zen correctly criticizes this “doctrine” on three grounds:

1. “Kilcullen’s three principles are an operational and not a genuinely strategic doctrine.”
2. “[T]his operational doctrine requires a sound national strategy and grand strategy if it is to add real value and not merely be a national security fire extinguisher.”

Gahlran picks up these two threads and runs with it:

…I am beginning to wonder where [COIN] becomes a priority towards national security, and how we get to the point this becomes national security as opposed to imperialism. Understanding a culture in COIN is a means by which we implement cultural influence, and potentially force cultural adaptation. Toward what strategic national objective in national security do we participate in this doctrine?

I ask this question because Zenpundit is on to something when he calls this “The Kilcullen Doctrine.” I think there is enormous potential here for positive and effective results, I’m just not sure I see the answer to the “why” question though…

If policy drives strategy, and strategy drives operational doctrine, shouldn’t we all be a bit concerned that operational doctrine has become the policy talking point rather than a policy itself?

With all the intellectual energy being expended on COIN doctrine, we are certainly becoming experts on how to apply counterinsurgency to our military occupations absent a clearly stated objective for the military occupation. What is missing in the open source is the intellectual energy being expended on the “why”, which is what would normally constitute the political policy of a country exercising military power in the context of a grand strategy.

I see two things missing from the national security debate…

1. A clear national political policy for any of the national security debates today…
2. A clear grand strategy for any of the foreign policy and national security debates today, whether it is the QDR, budget cuts, or operations being conducted globally…Ends are not well defined and means are being predetermined by budget decisions, and every major public discussion I see focuses on doctrine, education, and training (ways!) leaving strategy an upside down triangle in the context of a global economic crisis. We are missing a solid political and strategic foundation as a nation, and find ourselves literally teetering on the point and with a clear lack of symmetry…

With the focus on doctrine, in the end we are building the military for managing the problems that result from a lack of coherent policy and an alignment of strategy to policy. What is it we are trying to achieve with our liberal use of military power in the 21st century? This is not a complicated question, but an answer is a mandatory requirement to avoid the perpetual long war scenario. Did anyone in the Obama policy office ever read Clausewitz? Ironically, the Bush administration knew what political objectives they wanted from the use of military power, they just had no idea how to do it. How [do the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars] end when our national strategy has no end derived by a political objective expressed as policy?

Short answer: it doesn’t. Until this country has a public debate on the reason “why” we fight, the discussion will continue to be “how” we fight, meaning doctrine on the “ways” and an industrial driven discussion on what “means” will be purchased to fight will substitute for the public discussion of strategy as a way to avoid articulating a political policy, and in the meantime our military forces are being utilized globally absent a clearly articulated objective.

I wonder if asking for a grand strategy is asking too much from the American system of government. There have been few epochal grand strategic thinkers in American history: Hamilton, Wilson, Kennan, perhaps Jackson, Mahan, FDR, or Kissenger. Hamilton was the greatest of all. Talleyrand, himself an epochal figure whose grand strategy of legitimism ruled Europe from 1814-1914, once wrote, “I consider Napoleon, Fox, and Hamilton the three greatest men of our epoch, and if I were forced to decide between the three, I would give without hesitation the first place to Hamilton”. Hamilton adopted a system outlined in three of the greatest grand strategic documents ever written (First Report on Public Credit, Second Report on Public Credit, Report on Manufactures) that was so potent that even his Jeffersonian opponents adopted it whole hog by 1815 and followed it, excepting a Jacksonian interlude between 1830-1861, with stunning success until 1945. The first grand strategic dilemma that the Hamiltonian grand strategy encountered was the spectacular and sudden elevation of American power during World War I. America went from playing the role of challenger and spoiler to the role of nascent hegemon. This was beyond even Hamilton’s seemingly premature and grandiose predictions of future American greatness:

I shall briefly observe, that our situation invites, and our interests prompt us, to aim at an ascendant in the system of American affairs. The world may politically, as well as geographically, be divided into four parts, each having a distinct set of interests. Unhappily for the other three, Europe by her arms and by her negociations, by force and by fraud, has, in different degrees, extended her dominion over them all. Africa, Asia, and America have successively felt her domination. The superiority, she has long maintained, has tempted her to plume herself as the Mistress of the World, and to consider the rest of mankind as created for her benefit. Men admired as profound philosophers have, in direct terms, attributed to her inhabitants a physical superiority; and have gravely asserted that all animals, and with them the human species, degenerate in America–that even dogs cease to bark after having breathed a while in our atmosphere. Facts have too long supported these arrogant pretensions of the European. It belongs to us to vindicate the honor of the human race, and to teach that assuming brother moderation. Union will enable us to do it. Disunion will add another victim to his triumphs. Let Americans disdain to be the instruments of European greatness! Let the thirteen States, bound together in a strict and indissoluble union, concur in erecting one great American system, superior to the controul of all trans-atlantic force or influence, and able to dictate the terms of the connection between the old and the new world!

Into this breach came a cold Scotsman with a distinct air of personal superiority, that rarest and most dangerous of all creatures, the working political scientist. Thomas Woodrow Wilson saw a world order previously made up of centuries old empires and pronounced a cure in search of a disease: democracy based on the principle of the self-determination of nationalities. Wilson ripped down the old and tried in favor of the new and untested. Wilson planned to bring the principles behind John Calhoun’s vision of a United States with the League of Nations playing the role of the weak Federal Government, the nations of the Earth playing the role of the super-empowered States, and national sovereignty playing the role of nullification. It could be said that the millions that died in the upheavals unleashed by self-determination’s war of all against all, like the Confederacy of the Old South, “died of State’s Rights”. Wilson implicitly desired a world much like the then contemporary New World: a world of dysfunctional republics under the tutelage of a ruthless otherworldly Princeton school master who would “teach the South American world’s republics to elect good men”.

Wilson’s grand strategy was crippled by a few inconvenient truths:

1. America lacked substantial experience, institutions, or personnel appropriate for carrying out a grand strategy of global engagement, intervention, or hegemony at any scale.
2. America lacked a sizable constituency for such a grand strategy.
3. Many Americans, rightly, feared that such a strategy would corrupt the Old Republic and bring the evils of the Old World, with it’s feuding powers, to the New.
4. America was unwilling to invest in the resources, primarily military, that would be necessary for carrying out such a strategy.

Even if Wilsonism didn’t have the answer America was looking for in 1919, the fundamental fact on the ground remained. The Hamiltonian grand strategy had made the United States the most powerful nation on Earth and, due perhaps to a persistent lack of imagination, America only had two grand strategies to choose from:

1. Seek World Americanization, a global revolution that would create America all over the world.
2. Continue the policy of “America in One Country” advocated by Hamiltonians.

America has vacillated between these two Grand Strategies ever since. In practice, the grand strategy of the United States has been to replicate the Western Hemisphere all over the globe, with America as the prima inter pares amongst a group of weak, territorially stable, and easily manipulated (possibly only nominal) republics. This grand strategy was almost implicit under FDR’s policy of the Four Policemen, with Great Britain, the USSR, and (nominally) China playing the role the United States played in the Western Hemisphere in their respective regions and the United States acting as friendly arbiter between them all. This didn’t solve the schizophrenia between the two strategies but allowed the US to limp along. An even more fortuitous occurrence was the rise of enemies like Nazi Germany, Mikadoist Japan, and Communist Russia to provide a focal point for American power in the place of a hard and definitive resolution of the underlying dichotomy. Containment provided a useful framework to ignore the schizophrenia. In the name of defense and often on an ad hoc basis as new crises arose, America began to develop an informal imperialism that involved it in every nook and cranny in the world and made it the target of every crackpot with a gripe on the planet. However, with the inconvenient passing of the USSR, once again America is forced to wrestle with the unresolved dilemma of its own power and its inability to figure out how to use it.

The fundamental assumption that American grand strategy, such as it is, is that the world is made up of nations. This, after all, was the state of Europe during the infancy of the republic and it became the state of America’s immediate neighbors after they won their independence from Spain and Portugal. Where the United States found “non-state” actors, it treated them as nations, signed treaties with them as nations, went to war with them as nations, and moved them to inhospitable parts of the North American continent as nations. There was a solution to parts of the world that lacked substantial nations and that solution was empire. The vast stretches of the world that were subject to tribes and clans were absorbed into empires during the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth century. The answer to the tribal problem was the Maxim Gun: Europeans had it and the tribes didn’t.

The United States under Wilson, having a romantic view of its own independence struggle and derivative struggles launched by its Latin neighbors, determined that the entire world should repeat its national experience. One by one the empires of the Earth were replaced with the thin gruel of national self-determination where no nations existed and the democratic aspiration where no democracy existed. The result has been, in many parts of the world, persistent disorder and war. This isn’t to justify the existence of these empires but only to observe that while America is good at destroying the old order of things, it is very poor at providing a new order in its place. This is the true human cost of American grand strategic schizophrenia.

If we’re looking for a rationale behind the Kilcullen Doctrine, perhaps this would suffice. America expects a world of nations. In many parts of the world, there are no nations. America’s grand strategy should be to make a world of nations. This means that grand strategy should aim to establish a global dictatorship of law. Any law will do, as long as it keeps a nation’s citizen out of other nations’ hair. The maximal expression of this grand strategy can be American soldiers going into every nook and cranny of the ungoverned world and using COIN-fu to magically subject the riotous locals to the power of law or it could be the global minimum of collectively punishing a group of tribesmen who don’t think of themselves as a nation as if they were a nation. It certainly encouraged the indigenous inhabitants of this continent to develop a sense of nationhood.

One of the important principles of the original stratum of common law was that every man should have a lord. This served the important role of clearly establishing who was responsible for a wayward subject. A similar principle for the 21st century is that every man should have a nation. The primary goal of this principle is to establish where the final responsibility for an errant citizen lies. A clear bright line can then be drawn from an offender back to the offender’s keeper and recompense can be extracted from them. It has the virtue of providing a minimal bridge between the two possible grand strategies while something else turns up. However, in the ungoverned spaces, such a policy would inevitably rub the locals the wrong way. In herding cats there’s nothing like stroking them backwards. That, in the end, can only lead to more accidental guerrillas. It may be, however, that those covered with Hamilton’s fingerprints will inevitably have more power to accidentally throw around than is desirable.

The winner’s dilemma.

Risen from the Grave?

There are nine possible rings of defense around the United States of America.

This assumes that the United States continues to roughly correspond territorially to its current territorial limits. That itself is a big assumption. The United States could, more rapidly than most would dare contemplate, fracture due to internal strains. This is a more likely threat than conquest from the outside, given the difficulties faced with moving large numbers of troops from Eurasia to the Americas.

• The United States could fragment into multiple United Stateses, each seeking the legitimacy of the original and fighting over the symbolic trappings that signify that legitimacy (e.g. we have the original parchment of the Constitution!).
• The United States could fragment into a smaller rump United States and an assortment of powerful regional states.
• The United States could fragment into regions, city states, or even individual states.

Any such scenario would re-open the North American continent to Eurasian intrigue, an outcome that was largely foreclosed by the forcible reunification of the United States in 1865 followed by the expulsion of the French from Mexico two years later. The United States would be haunted by the Mandate of Heaven: the ambition beating in the heart of every local president or governor of each fissaparous Unionlet would be to recreate Greater America. American nationalism would invert and become more like the nationalism of contemporary Russia and China, a negative nationalism, the nationalism of victimhood. Instead of its focus on an expanding future, America would turn around and focus on regaining a receding past. The casual cosmopolitan would be thrown to the side while the theme of American culture would become nashi “ours”. This flavor of American nationalism was last seen, to a minor extent, from the end of the Vietnam War to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

America, if it recovered from its travails, would become a revisionist power. This role would be conceptually easier than the United States’ current strategic configuration. The role of the challenger is well established: many contemporary powers are playing the role right now.

Each ring represents a level of control. To quote Admiral J.C. Wylie:

The primary aim of the strategist in the conduct of war is some selected degree of control of the enemy for the strategist’s own purpose; this is achieved by control of the pattern of war; and this control of the pattern of war is had by manipulation of the center of gravity of war to the advantage of the strategist and the disadvantage of the opponent.

The successful strategist is the one who controls the nature and the placement and the timing and the weight of the centers of gravity of war, and who exploits the resulting control of the pattern of war toward his own ends.

There are a few principles under which control operates in the real world:

1. Control has several dimensions e.g. land, naval, space, air, social, cyberspace.
2. Each dimension of control is both a target of control and a medium through which control can be transferred to other targets of control.
3. Each dimension of control has two characteristics: resistance, how well it acts as a medium of control, and persistence, how long a target of control can be kept under control.
4. Some dimensions of control, offering little resistance, make better media of control than others. However, they are often hostile to persistent control. This means that they function more as media of control than as targets of control.
5. Control grows more rapidly through control of a dimension of control characterized by low resistance than a dimension of control characterized by high persistence.

There are three levels of control over a dimension of control (level 0 is no control at all):

1. Sufficient control to gain knowledge about a dimension of control.
2. Sufficient control to shape control over a dimension of control.
3. Complete control of a dimension of control.

There are six sub-levels of control, three negative and three positive. The negative and defensive sub-levels are:

1. Prevent others from getting knowledge you don’t want them to have.
2. Prevent others from shaping your level of control.
3. Prevent others from absolutely controlling you.

The positive and offensive sub-levels are:

1. Get knowledge about others, especially the knowledge the others don’t want you to have.
2. Shape others’ level of control.
3. Absolutely control others.

Ring 0 is the level the United States would have to fall below to grant another a sufficient level of control to dismember significantly the present fifty constituent states of the Union. Having noted some of the possible characteristics of Ring 0 previously, let’s move on to the nine rings proper.

Ring 1:

• Coastal defense of the west coast of North America, the Atlantic seaboard, the Great Lakes, and the northern Caribbean Sea.
• Submarines for commerce raiding and for launching nuclear armed ICBMs.
• Air power able to project to Northern Eurasia, mid-Pacific, northern South America, and mid-Atlantic with air superiority over North America.
• Land-based nuclear armed ICBMs capable of hitting Eurasia.
• Army concentrations in Minnesota, Washington State, Southern California, mid-Texas, Michigan, upper New York, and upper New England.
• Access to cyberspace.
• Access to space for missiles.
• Encouragement of amenable regimes in Canada and Mexico. If not amenable, work to change.

Ring 2:

• Forward naval defense of the west coast of North America, the Atlantic seaboard, and the Caribbean Sea.
• Coastal defense of Ring 1.
• Submarines for commerce raiding and for launching nuclear armed ICBMs.
• Air power able to project into Central Eurasia, western Pacific, central South America, and Atlantic Rimlands with air superiority over northeastern Pacific, Arctic, and north Atlantic.
• Land-based nuclear armed ICBMs capable of hitting Eurasia.
• Army concentrations along borders with central reserves in New York State, Illinois, Texas, Minnesota, Southern California, and Washington State.
• Access to cyberspace.
• Access to space for missiles.
• Encouragement of amenable regimes in Ring 1, northern Caribbean and nearby Atlantic islands. If not amenable, consider occupation of Canada, northern Mexico, Caribbean islands like Cuba, and Atlantic islands like the Bahamas and Bermuda.

Ring 3:

• Forward naval defense from Hawaii and Alaska into western to central Pacific and, in case of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), into the Arctic; and from east coast into North Atlantic islands and northern South America.
• Coastal defense of Ring 1.
• Submarines for commerce raiding and for launching nuclear armed ICBMs.
• Air power able to project into non-Heartland Eurasia and Africa with air superiority over Pacific Ocean, Arctic Ocean, and Atlantic Rimlands.
• Land-based nuclear armed ICBMs capable of hitting Eurasia.
• Army concentration in Ring 2 plus ability to occupy neighboring continental territory, nearby offshore islands, and raid Central and South America.
• Access to cyberspace with limited offensive capacity.
• Access to space for missiles and satellites.
• Encouragement of amenable regimes in Ring 2, Panama, and Iceland. If not amenable, consider occupation of Ring 1, Ring 2, Panama, and Iceland.

Ring 4:

• Forward defense in western Pacific with force projection into offshore islands like Formosa, the Philippines, and Japan and ability to project force into Atlantic Rimlands and, in case of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), into the Arctic facing Eurasian Rimlands.
• Coastal defense of Ring 1, Hawaii, and Alaska plus any necessary portions of Ring 1-3.
• Submarines for commerce raiding and for launching nuclear armed ICBMs.
• Air power able to project into Heartland Eurasia and Africa with air superiority over Western Hemisphere  to the Eurasian Rimlands.
• Land-based nuclear armed ICBMs capable of hitting Eurasia.
• Army concentrations in Ring 3 with ability to occupy countries in the Western Hemisphere and the ability to raid Eurasian Rimlands along Atlantic and Pacific.
• Access to cyberspace with limited cyber offensive capability.
• Access to space for missiles and satellites.
• Encouragement of amenable regimes in the Ring 3, the British Isles, Western Europe, Central America, Guam, Japan, Formosa, the Philippines, and Mexico. If not amenable, consider occupation of Ring 3, the Philippines, and Ireland.

Ring 5:

• Naval force projection into East Eurasian Rimlands from lodgments in East Eurasian islands like Japan, Formosa, and the Philippines; force projection into west Eurasian Rimlands from lodgments on offshore islands like Great Britain, and the ability to raid into the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean Sea, and, in case of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), to project power into the previously inaccessible North Eurasian Rimland.
• Coastal defense of Ring 3.
• Submarines for commerce raiding and for launching nuclear armed ICBMs.
• Air power able to project into Heartland Eurasia and Africa on raids with air superiority over Eurasian Pacific and Atlantic Rimlands.
• Land-based nuclear armed ICBMs capable of hitting Eurasia.
• Army concentrations in Ring 4 plus the ability to occupy islands immediately off the coast of Eurasia and the ability to raid Indian Ocean and Mediterranean Rimlands.
• Access to cyberspace with with medium cyber offensive capability.
• Access to space for missiles and satellites with limited space offensive capacity.
• Encouragement of amenable regimes in the Ring 4, British Isles, Western Eurasia, East Eurasia, Korea, Japan, Formosa, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia. If not amenable, consider occupation of Ring 4, Japan, Great Britain, and Formosa.

Ring 6:

• Naval mastery of Atlantic and Pacific and the ability to raid into the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean Sea, and, in case of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), to project power into the previously inaccessible North Eurasian Rimland.
• Coastal defense of Ring 3.
• Submarines for commerce raiding and for launching nuclear armed ICBMs.
• Air power able to project anywhere on Earth with air superiority over everywhere except the very inner recesses of the Heartland.
• Land-based nuclear armed ICBMs capable of hitting Eurasia.
• Army concentrations in Ring 5 plus the ability to occupy Atlantic and Eurasian Rimland and the ability to raid Indian Ocean and Mediterranean Rimlands.
• Access to cyberspace with major cyber offensive capability.
• Access to space for missiles and satellites with limited space offensive capacity.
• Encouragement of amenable regimes in Ring 5, South Eurasia, Southern Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. If not amenable, consider occupation of Ring 5, Borneo, Sumatra, Korea, Atlantic Eurasian Rimland, and Southern Africa.

Ring 7:

• Naval mastery of all the world’s oceans.
• Coastal defense of Ring 4.
• Submarines for commerce raiding and for launching nuclear armed ICBMs.
• Air power able to project anywhere on Earth with air superiority everywhere.
• Land-based nuclear armed ICBMs capable of hitting Eurasia.
• Army concentrations in Ring 6 plus the ability to occupy Mediterranean and South Asian Rimland.
• Access to cyberspace with major cyber offensive capability.
• Access to space for missiles and satellites with major space offensive capacity.
• Encouragement of amenable regimes in Ring 6 and South Eurasian Rimlands. If not amenable, consider occupation of Ring 6 and South Eurasian Rimlands.

Ring 8:

• Naval mastery of all the world’s oceans.
• Coastal defense of Ring 5.
• Submarines for commerce raiding and for launching nuclear armed ICBMs.
• Air power able to project anywhere on Earth with air superiority everywhere.
• Land-based nuclear armed ICBMs capable of hitting Eurasia.
• Army concentrations in Ring 7 plus the ability to occupy the outer Heartland.
• Mastery of cyberspace.
• Mastery of space.
• Encouragement of amenable regimes in Ring 7 and Heartland. If not amenable, consider occupation of Ring 7 and Heartland.

Ring 9:

• Naval mastery of all the world’s oceans.
• Coastal defense everywhere.
• Submarines for commerce raiding and for launching nuclear armed ICBMs.
• Air power able to project anywhere on Earth with air superiority everywhere.
• Land-based nuclear armed ICBMs capable of hitting Eurasia.
• Army concentrations in Heartland.
• Mastery of cyberspace.
• Mastery of space.
• Mastery of land.

Fighting Talk

Colin S. Gray’s Fighting Talk: Forty Maxims on War, Peace, and Strategy should be a great book. It should decisively fill the unmet need for a work that explains high Clausewitzian strategy to the masses.

In this it fails.

It is too self-referential, with Gray constantly referring to himself as “this strategist” or as a “practicing strategist”. There’s too much transparent humility, too many defenses against being a war monger, and too much insider jargon. It’s too stuck in 2006, a very dreary year that may hold little interest a generation from now. The construction of sentences is often ludicrously overwrought. It could use a good editor to strike out the layers of accretion that disguise what are actually some very good points. It reminds me of John Keegan’s A History of Warfare. A potentially great book by a distinguished author that is fatally flawed, in Keegan’s case by a stunningly awful ignorance of Clausewitz.

There are excellent parts of the book. Some flavor of the better parts of the book can be captured by Gray’s actual forty maxims, which I’ve reworked here for my own amusement:

1. The overlapping contexts of war are all important.
2. War is about peace. Peace can be about war.
3. It’s harder to make peace than it is to make war.
4. War works but beware the unexpected side effects.
5. Peace and order aren’t self-enforcing. Somebody has to create and maintain them.
6. When a political community makes war and peace, its society and culture make war and peace.
7. While reason controls war, passion and chance are always plotting against it.
8. There is more to war than warfare.
9. While politics rules war, it is frequently ignorant of just what it’s gotten itself into.
10. War is always a gamble.
11. Knowledge of strategy is vital: the flame of strategic understanding must be kept burning.
12. Strategy is more difficult than politics and tactics.
13. Bad strategy kills but bad politics and bad tactics are accomplices to the crime.
14. If Thucydides, Sun Tzu, and Clausewitz didn’t say it, it’s probably not worth saying.
15. Today’s hip new strategic concept is tomorrow’s stale left-over, at least until it’s rediscovered, recycled, and revealed as a new strategic gospel handed down from on high.
16. The enemy gets a vote. Bugger for us.
17. Time is the most unforgiving dimension of strategy.
18. You can’t escape friction but it doesn’t have to kill you.
19. Geography is the medium through which all strategy must act.
20. Strategy deals with more than the military.
21. The impossible is impossible: impossible is a permanent condition, not a passing problem.
22. People matter most.
23. Military power is the final arbiter of politics.
24. The only test of military excellence is performance in war.
25. Military excellence can’t guarantee strategy success.
26. Victory in battle does not guarantee political or strategic success but defeat all but guarantees failure.
27. There is more to war than firepower: the enemy is more than a set of target coordinates.
28. Logistics is the arbiter of strategic opportunity.
29. Bad times return.
30. There are always thugs, villains, rogues, and fools out there who’re out to get us.
31. Existential threats happen.
32. Prudence is the supreme virtue in statecraft and strategy.
33. Strategic history punishes good intentions.
34. Defense costs are certain. Security benefits are uncertain and debatable.
35. Arms can be controlled but not with arms control.
36. Nothing of real importance changes: modern history is not modern.
37. History can be twisted to prove anything. But it’s the only guide to the future we have.
38. The future is not foreseeable: nothing becomes outdated faster than today’s tomorrow.
39. Surprise is unavoidable but its impact is not.
40. Tragedy happens.

• Good article on Nicholas J. Spykman (props de re militari). As a matter of fact, the entire site, Exploring Geopolitics, is a real resource for this oft-neglected discipline.
• Lexington Green linked to an interesting series of posts from back in 2005 over at Albion’s Seedlings. The subject of the series is World War Zero, the crucial period during which America peacefully passed Great Britain to become the maritime hegemon of the Earth (I believe that the War of the League of Augsburg from 1688-1697 was the first World War. However, if we use currently accepted chronology, it would be World War -6). This inexorable crushing of the British Emprie was a theme touched on in yesterday’s post: The Challenger. Albion’s Seedlings is a play on Albion’s Seed by David Hackett Fischer, one of the top five books for understanding America. More here.

House of Clay

The dilemma that most nations in the world face is straightforward: how to get to the top of the greasy pole and keep from sliding down. They can play the role of the challenger; their goal is simple: do what it takes to beat the nations that are higher on the totem pole. Sometimes this is done by imitating what the incumbent powers did on the way up or what they’re doing now. Sometimes it’s done by new innovations on the part of the challenger. Mostly its a mixture of both plus a little cultural magic for extra effect.

The United States was a challenger from 1775 on. It had a target to emulate and rival: Great Britain. Alexander Hamilton had studied the now forgotten grand strategy of Robert Walpole that Great Britain had used to topple the Dutch Republic from its place as the previous maritime hegemon. These ideas were primarily found in the works of Sir James Steuart. This was a combination of building a national identity, internal improvements to build economic infrastructure like roads and canals, a central bank, a preferential tariff and duties, an internal market free of internal taxes, a national debt, a large navy, a large merchant marine, a bond market, and the encouragement of manufacturing over agriculture.

Hamilton’s grand strategy, the American School of Economics, translated into law by Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln as the American System (Clay was Lincoln’s only political hero. Lincoln’s first public speech was given in support of internal improvements a la Clay.), allowed America to run Great Britain’s previous strategy while fighting off Britain’s insidious strategy of free trade. Britain tempted or coerced countries all over the world to open their markets. Then, exploiting its mastery of the new technology of the Industrial Revolution, then dumped cheap manufactured goods on their markets, destroying indigenous industries. The United States used its massive internal market, plentiful natural resources, protective duties and tariffs, large merchant fleet, industrial espionage, piracy of intellectual property, and internal technological innovation to gradually overtake Britain. The great cry of the day was that weak nations imitate, great nations steal.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, the United States, using the American System, had almost completed its recovery from the War against the Rebellion, a conflict that put the United States back forty years thanks to Southern reactionaries in thrall to British commercial interests. During World War I the United States bled the British and French of their gold, making them debtors and entered the war at the last minute in order to cement its place in the international pecking order (I’m giving Thomas Woodrow Wilson more credit for cleverness than he manifested in reality. Whether it was by design or not, that was the outcome of World War I, the most decisive war in American history).

The United States had arrived at the top. This raised a new dilemma. The challenger strategy is easy: do what the hegemon does, only better. A harder question is what grand strategy do you employ once you reach the top? That’s been an open question since 1919.

George Washington's Chair

At the Constitutional Convention, the chair that George Washington sat in as he presided had an engraved sun on its back. James Madison’s notes record:

Doctor Franklin, looking toward the President’s chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him, that painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art a rising sun from a setting sun.  I have, said he, often in the course of this session, and the vissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting; but at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting sun.

How many, when looking at the chair now, would see a rising sun? America has been manic-depressive during my lifetime. Some see every passing cloud and proclaim The End of America As We Know It. Some see every ray of light that shines through the gloom and declare that The Sun Always Shines on America. Some hold their opinion due to congenital optimism or pessimism. Some hold it out of professional interest. Most Americans think that America is generally rising but the overall size of the group ebbs and flows with the country’s fortunes.

Right now America is in an America in Decline cycle. I’ve seen several of these cycles:

• America in malaise
• Morning in America
• Germany and Japan are the future
• America is the world’s sole and indispensable super power
• America is the hyperpower
• China is the future

Whether or not America is in decline is an open question. If it’s in decline, what kind of decline is it in? Is it a dip on an upwards rise or a terminal decline? If it’s a dip, is there any way to pull out of the rut? If it’s terminal, is there any way to reverse the inevitable? Or is national morphine the only option?

There’s a few signs to look for in diagnosing system decline:

• Decline of the elites vs. decline of the general population
• Decline of the nation vs. decline of the state
• Decline in hard power vs. soft power

There is a distinct possibility that what some observe as overall decline is decline in the elites rather than decline in the general population. A nation can seem to be in irreversible decline, suddenly shed its elites, and bounce back with new vigor. Mancur Olson contended that nations gradually accumulate free riders who consume national power without contributing back to the communal pool. People turn to accumulating power through extraction rather than improvement. Eventually the number of free riders grows so large that national vigor suffers death by a million free rider cuts, much sharper and harder to see than a thousand paper cuts.

A closely allied phenomenon is that of the institutional imperative. This is the tendency of human organizations to drift from their original instrumental role to a later institutional role. Organizations are usually started with a purpose; the organization is an instrument for realizing that purpose. Over time, the members of the organization drift more and more towards perpetuating the organization and, by extension, their own living. Eventually preserving their own share of power overcomes the original instrumental purpose as the guiding light of the organization. Another organization may then be created to fulfill the purpose the original organization is increasingly incapable of. It then gradually drifts towards institutionalization and the process starts all over again. Deadwood builds up and society goes slower.

These two, allied phenomena both hamper society by making it hard to see new threats and making it hard to react to new threats. Since a large part of society is devoted to getting and maintaining their hold on the public teat, they put their own particular interest over the general interest which has no particular constituency. This leaves them blind to outside threats and serves to break up their OODA loop. Often, even if the threat is perceived, nothing can be done because society can’t be moved. The build up of special interests seeking rent see any attempt at adaptation as a threat to their interests, which are deeply invested in the status quo. Since the primary purpose of an elite is to maintain their own power and prestige and since they are the one’s leading society, this leaves society vulnerable to secular and cyclical threats.

Often times the vigor of the general population remains unchanged. All they need is new leadership. Poland went through an extended period of decline from 1683 to 1791 but was unable to move its sclerotic aristocracy fast enough to hold off partition. Yet the repeated uprisings against Russia, Austria, and Prussia showed that the Polish people had plenty of vigor. France in 1789 was the Great Power That Couldn’t, bankrupt, divided, and frail. Yet the revolution came along, destroyed the power of the old aristocracy, and made France the dominant power on the Continent, subjected to repeated checks, until 1871 and briefly from 1918-1940. Pareto called this the circulation of the elites.

It may be that republics, with their emphasis on restricting violence to legally sanctioned expressions, reducing conflict to rhetorical bombast, and due process of law, are prone to react slower than other systems. Machiavelli makes this argument in his Discourses:

And certainly, of all Rome’s institutions, the Dictatorship is one that deserves to be considered and counted among the ones that led to the greatness of its power, for without such an institution cities will have difficulty getting out of extraordinary events. Because a republic’s customary institutions function slowly: no council or public official can run everything by itself; in many matters one needs the other. It takes time to reconcile their wills, so their remedies are very dangerous when they have to deal with something that cannot wait. And that is why republics must have some such means among their institutions. The Venetian republic, which excels among modern republics, has set aside powers for a few citizens who, in times of urgent need and without broader consultation, can make decisions unanimously. When a republic lacks such means, it is necessary for it either to collapse in observing the constitution or to break with it in order not to collapse. And in a republic nothing should ever occur that has to be dealt with by extraordinary means. Because, although the extraordinary means may work well then, the example does harm nevertheless: people become accustomed to breaking laws for a good purpose and then under that pretext they are broken for ill. So a republic will never be perfect unless its laws have provided for everything and supplied a remedy for any event and prescribed means for applying it. And therefore I say in conclusion: those republics that in cases of urgent danger  do not have recourse either to a Dictator or to some such power will always collapse under serious events.

America has turned to the Dictatorship solution during at least three crises: Lincoln during the Civil War, Wilson during World War I, and FDR during the Depression and World War II. There was some legislative and judicial brakes but, compared to peacetime, the powers of the presidency were enormous. Whether this is an effective release valve for accumulating rent seeking is an open question but it may be better than the outright revolution required in some other nations.

If America’s elites are out of touch with external reality and can’t adapt the increasingly sclerotic American system to a changing world, decline may not necessarily be the fault of the American people. It may be that a rotation of elites would be enough to offset any decline.

There is also the decline of the state compared to the decline of the nation. The Polish state has come and gone over the last millennium but the Polish nation has endured. It may be that America the nation is so bound up in its political expression, the United States of America, that the two cannot be disentangled. However, if there is an American nation under the institutional framework of the United States, than it may be possible for the United States to decline but America to rise. If the current state of affairs is leading to decline, it may become time to create a new state. The state is only the instrument of the nation. If it becomes an end unto itself, its instrumental role is broken.

Of course it may also be that America is not a nation but a league of nations. In the long run Kansas may not go the way of Massachusetts. The two may be governed by broadly different imperatives. America has distinctive regional cultural clusters and it may fragment along those lines under a elite circulation caliber event. However, never underestimate the inertial momentum of 200 years of political union.

Another symptom of decline may be the decline of hard power vs. a decline in soft power. Hard power is a nation’s easily quantifiable resources. Natural resources, geography, wealth, accumulated productive infrastructure, and weaponry are examples of hard power. Cultural strengths, social cohesion, fighting qualities, adaptability, and innovativeness are examples of soft power. Declines in hard power are easy to measure. Declines in soft power are ambiguous. Similarly, preservation of physical ecology is easy to measure and easy to campaign for compared to soft power. Preservation of social ecology is far harder to do successfully and far harder to justify. Yet both are necessary. Losses to soft power, however, may be more costly because of their relative invisibility. The extraction and refinement of hard power is a knowable process. The extraction and refinement of soft power is hit and miss. The tragedy is that a nation that is strong in soft power will often defeat a nation that is strong in soft power and the reasons why will remain elusive.

Decline is a hard call. And the experience of whether America is rising or falling is also going to be a hard call despite what the professional pollyannas or naysayers say.

Buckle up.

Maxims 21-30 from Series C of Francesco Guicciardini’s Ricordi.

21. On several occasions I have said and written that the Medici lost control of the state in [15]27 [second expulsion of the Medici] because they respected so many republican institutions; and that I was afraid the people would lose their liberty because they exercised such tight control of the state. The reasoning behind these two conclusions is this: the Medici regime, being odious to most of the citizens, needed solid support among devoted partisans if it was to maintain itself. These would have had to be men who not only stood to gain a great deal from the government, but who also recognized that they would be ruined and could not remain in Florence if the Medici were expelled. But such supporters were hard to find! For the Medici, trying hard to seem fair to everyone and not wishing to show any partiality towards friends and relatives, were in the habit of distributing the highest as well as the lowest offices widely and generously. If the Medici had done the contrary, they would certainly be worthy of censure. But even so, they did not gain many adherents to their regime. For although the majority of people were satisfied with the way the Medici conducted themselves, they were not completely won over. The desire to return to the [republic] was so rooted in the hearts of men that it could not be eradicated by any acts of kindness, mildness, or favor. The friends of the Medici liked the regime, but were not so attached as to run any risk for it. In case of a crisis, they hoped that, by behaving well, they could save themselves as they had done in [14]94 [first expulsion of the Medici]; and thus they were disposed to let things take their course rather than try to withstand an onslaught.

A popular government must take a completely opposite course from the one that would have been favorable to the Medici. Generally, the people of Florence love popular government. It is not a machine guided by one or by a few towards a definite end, but rather changes its directions every day because of the number and ignorance of those who run it. And therefore, a popular government must keep the favor of the people if it wishes to maintain itself. It must do all it can to stay out of the quarrels of its citizens lest they, having no other recourse, open the way to revolution. In short, popular government must tread the path of justice and equality. From these are born the security of all and, as a rule, general satisfaction. More, they will provide a basis for preserving popular government—not through a few partisans, which it could not tolerate, but through numerous friends. To continue tight control of the state is impossible, for it transforms popular government into another kind. And that does not preserve liberty but destroys it.

22. How often it is said: if only this had been done, that would have happened; or, if only that had not been done, this would not have happened. And yet, if it were possible to test such statements, we should see how false they are.

23. The future is so deceptive and subject to so many accidents that very often even the wisest of men is fooled when he tries to predict it. If you look very closely at his prognostications, especially when they concern details—for often the general outcome is easier to guess—you will see little difference between them and the guesses of those who are considered less wise. Therefore, to give up a present good for fear of a future evil is, most of the time, madness—unless the evil is very certain, very near, or very great compared to the good. Otherwise, quite often a groundless fear will cause you to lose a good thing you could have kept.

24. Nothing is more fleeting than the memory of benefits received. Therefore, rely more on those whose circumstances do not permit them to fail you than on those whom you have favored. For often they will not remember the favors, or they will even claim that you did them almost because you were obliged.

25. Be careful not to do anyone the sort of favor that cannot be done without at the same time displeasing others. For injured men do not forget offenses; in fact, they exaggerate them. Whereas the favored party will either forget or will deem the favor smaller than it was. Therefore, other things being equal, you lose a great deal more than you gain.

26. Men ought to pay a great deal more attention to substance and realities than to ceremonies. And ye it is incredible how easily people fall for kind, soft words. The reason is that everyone thinks he merits being highly esteemed, and therefore will be indignant if he thinks you are mindless of what is he sure he deserves.

27. If you have doubts about someone, your true and best security consists in having things so arranged that he cannot hurt you even if he wants to. For any security founded on the will and discretion of others is worthless, seeing how little goodness and faith is to be found in men.

[...]

30. If you consider the matter carefully, you cannot deny that Fortune has great power over human affairs. We see these affairs constantly being affected by fortuitous circumstances that men could neither foresee nor avoid. Although cleverness and care may accomplish many things, they are nevertheless not enough. Man also needs good Fortune.

Guicciardini

Maxims 11-20 from Series C of Francesco Guicciardini’s Ricordi.

11. Do not let the ingratitude of many men deter you from doing good to others. To do good without ulterior motive is a generous and almost divine thing in itself. Moreover, while doing good, you may come across someone so grateful that he makes up for all the ingratitude of others.

12. In every nation we find nearly all the same or similar proverbs expressed in different words. The reason is that these proverbs are born of experience, or observation of things; and that is the same, or at least similar, everywhere.

13. If you want to know what the thoughts of tyrants are, read in Cornelius Tacitus the last conversations of the dying Augustus with Tiberius.

14. Nothing is more precious than friends; therefore, lose no opportunity to make them. Men will always get together to talk; and friends can help, and enemies can harm you, in times and places you would never expect.

15. Like all men, I have pursued honor and profit. And often I got more than I had wished or hoped. But I never found in them the satisfaction I had anticipated. A powerful reason, if it be well considered, for men to lessen their vain cupidity.

16. Power and position are generally sought, because everything that is beautiful and good about them appears externally, emblazoned on their superficies, But the bother, the toil, the troubles, and the dangers lie hidden and unseen. If these were as obvious as the good things, there would be no reason to seek power and position, except one: the more men are honored, revered, and adored, the more they seem to approach and become similar to God? And what man would not want to resemble Him?

17. Do not believe those who say they have voluntarily relinquished power and position for love of peace and quiet. Nearly always, their reason was either levity or necessity. Experience shows that, as soon as they are offered a chance to return to the former life, they leave behind their much vaunted peace and quiet, and seize it with the same fury that fire seizes dry or oily things.

18. Cornelius Tacitus teaches those who live under tyrants how to live and act prudently; just as he teaches tyrants ways to secure their tyranny.

19. Conspiracies cannot be hatched without the complicity of others, and for that reason they are extremely dangerous. For most men are either stupid or evil, and to take up with such people involves too great a risk.

20. Nothing works against the success of a conspiracy so much as the wish to make it ironclad and almost certain to succeed. Such an attempt always requires many men, much time, and very favourable circumstances. And all these in turn may heighten the risk of being discovered. You see, therefore, how dangerous conspiracies are! All these factors that would add security to any other enterprise add danger to this one. I think the reason may be that Fortune, who plays such a large role in all matters, becomes angry with those who try to limit her dominion.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7d/Cumberland-Reynolds.jpg/210px-Cumberland-Reynolds.jpg

An amusing faceoff between a Jacobite and a Whig, something rarely seen since the ‘45. It isn’t as bloody as Culloden yet but it’s slightly more stimulating than the usual weekend blood sport.

Last week the Liberation Tigers of Tamal Elam (LTTE), better known as the Tamil Tigers, were crushed by the Sri Lankan military. Crucially, the army, in launching its final assault, seems to have killed the critical leadership cadres of the Tigers, including their founder and supreme leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. The victory has the potential to be that rare thing: a decisive military defeat of a modern insurgency. Sri Lanka seems to have destroyed the military cadres, weapon caches, logistics, and infrastructure of the Tigers. The Tamil population seems to have had the fight knocked out of them by a combination of the Tigers’ viciousness and Sinhalese ruthlessness. Political follow up of some sort will be necessary to consolidate the victory but Sri Lanka’s military has given the political leadership of Sri Lanka breathing room to do so. I doubt the Sinhalese majority will give the minority Tamils a bed of roses however.

The victory of the Tigers may provide useful lessons for those that care to learn them. Some of these lessons are timeless. Some are contingent on the current state of the world.

• Insurgents should know when to cash in their chips. Clausewitz went and provided them with the concept of the culminating point of an offensive and they, like many, chose to ignore On War. The Tamil Tigers, much like the FARC in Colombia, were given sufficient rope in the form of domestic leaders who made major concessions to them (Ranil Wickramasinghe in Sri Lanka, Andres Pastrana in Colombia) in the interests of a peaceful settlement. In both cases the Tigers, like the FARC, proceeded to pee all over their benefactors, seeking to expand their reach and generally behaving in a non-peaceful way. This paved the way for the ascent of harder line candidates (Mahinda Rajapaksa in Sri Lanka, Alvaro Uribe in Colombia) who eventually neutered their respective insurgencies. Don’t shoot your patsy in the back. The next guy may not be so accommodating.
• The strategy and victories of modern insurgents rely on a favourable international climate. The Tigers seemed to love pissing off their best potential allies. They killed an Indian prime minister and embarrassed Indian peace keeping forces, alienating the region’s biggest power. By screwing around during their ceasefire, the Tigers pretty much demonstrated that they weren’t serious about peace and Jeffersonian democracy to the West. India and the West were the sum total of the constituencies that might have impeded Sri Lanka and its offensive.  If they weren’t in the picture, what other friends did the Tigers have?
• Modern insurgency relies on access to the media and the attention of an audience that can intervene. No one in America paid much attention to what was happening in Sri Lanka. News on the Tigers usually amounted to a ten second news blurb that there was fighting in Sri Lanka and that the Tamil Tigers invented the suicide bomber. Not a strong hook for your PR campaign. The Tigers strategy of victory at the end seems to have come down to putting civilians in harm’s way and hoping the resulting casualties would cause the international community (Europe and the US) to put enough pressure on the Sri Lankan government to call off the offensive. This seems to be eerily similar to Saddam Hussein’s strategy during the 2003 Iraq War. In both cases the strategy failed to consider what would happen if the political leader of the attacking army just ignored international outrage, such as it was. The Tigers lost mindshare and they lost the war.
• The West is not the only game in town. The Sri Lankan government was able to go to Russia, Pakistan, and especially China for weaponry and financial support. China picked up strategic gains that it will cash in later in the form of improved strategic access to the Indian Ocean. This trend will only grow stronger as the West retreats into irrelevance.
• Divide and rule still works. The Sri Lankan military was able to break off Tiger factions that wanted a deal and make them a deal. This was probably the death blow to the Tigers in their current form.
• Violence works when you pursue it consistently, intelligently, remorselessly, and don’t let civilians in the war zone distract you. You don’t go out of your way to massacre civilians but you don’t let them get in the way of achieving military objectives either. Civilian deaths are usually only a problem if there’s video cameras around and factions in the West to upset. Once the video is gone and no one cares, its Hama time.
• Muzzling the press helps. The press serves a role in a free society but are also driven by private motivations i.e. “if it bleeds, it leads” and are usually idealists who mean well and communicate well but lack enough awareness of how the real world works to provide an accurate picture of events. It’s not even certain that if they did provide a meaningful rendition of events that they would find a meaningful audience.