RAND Review
The World Has Changed, But Our Mindset Has Not
Time to Change
Ethnic Albanians in the center of Pristina, Kosovo, commemorate the fifth anniversary of the start of the NATO bombing campaign launched on March 24, 1999. Violence between Serbs and Kosovars continues in the province, the final status of which remains to be determined. |
Increasingly, we are at war not with enemy states or enemy armies but with small groups of people or with specific individuals: fugitive terrorists, drug traffickers, warlords, dangerous dictators, rogue scientists. We find ourselves in the domain of manhunts, lethal takedowns, and individually targeted killings. The nature of these missions blurs military operations with law enforcement, changes the rules of engagement, and increases the requirement for precision, whether in economic coercion or in the application of military power. That, in turn, increases the demands on intelligence and the ability to rapidly exploit it.
Yet powerful institutional barriers to fundamental change remain. In the armed forces, there is still a tendency to view the current situation as an anomaly—as the "other war" as opposed to the "real war," as missions to be consigned to specialized units rather than to main forces, as opportunities to gain valuable field experience but not a compelling argument to radically alter how we organize to fight. We adapt incrementally. Given our great strength, that may suffice. But one wonders. It is nowhere written that we will win.
Bronze Age kingdoms, from the Mycenaeans to the Hittites, waged chariot warfare. When relatively primitive challengers fielded hordes of lightly armed foot soldiers, they changed the nature of warfare itself. The technologically advanced chariots became obsolete. Within a period of only several decades, the great Bronze Age kingdoms themselves collapsed, great cities were destroyed, commerce was significantly disrupted, and much of the civilized world slid into a dark age that lasted 400 years.
Today, we confront an array of enemies whose diverse interests are served by obviating U.S. military superiority, destroying American cities, and disrupting commerce. These are not the "wars" we would prefer. They are not the ones that fit into our planning scenarios. Nor are they the contests where we necessarily have the obvious advantage. To the contrary, they are the ones that compel us to rethink our assumptions, to reconfigure our forces, and to reinvigorate our alliances.
Related Reading
Countering al Qaeda: An Appreciation of the Situation and Suggestions for Strategy, Brian Michael Jenkins, RAND/MR-1620-RC, 2002, 41 pp., ISBN 0-8330-3264-X, $15.00.
Deterrence & Influence in Counterterrorism: A Component in the War on Al Qaeda, Paul K. Davis, Brian Michael Jenkins, RAND/MR-1619-DARPA, 2002, 105 pp., ISBN 0-8330-3286-0, $20.00.
Remarks Before the Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, Brian Michael Jenkins, RAND/CT-203, 2003, 13 pp., $5.00.
Terrorism: Current and Long Term Threats, Brian Michael Jenkins, RAND/CT-187, 2001, 10 pp., $5.00.
Print-friendly versions: Full issue as PDF |
RAND® is a registered trademark. Copyright © 1994-2012 RAND Corporation.