Battlefield Future2 PDF

BATTLEFIELD OF THE FUTURE
21st Century Warfare Issues
Barry R. Schneider
Lawrence E. Grinter
Revised Edition
September 1998
The Air War College Studies in National Security was

established as a forum for research on topics that influence
the national security of the United States . Copies of No . 3 in
this series are available from the Air War College, 325
Chennault Circle, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama
36112-6427 . The fax number is (334) 953-7934 ; the
telephone number is (334) 953-2103/DSN 493-2103/7074.
Air War College

Studies in National Security No. 3
Air University Press

Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama 36112-6428
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Battlefield of the future : 21 st century warfare issues / [edited] by Barry R . Schneider and Lawrence
E . Grinter-Rev. ed.
p. cm. - (Air War College studies in national security : no. 3)
I . Military art and science-Forecasting . 2 . Twenty-first century . I. Schneider, Barry R .
II . Grinter, Lawrence E . III. Series .
U104 .1338 1998
355 .02'01'12-dc21 98-38913
CIP
ISBN 1-58566-061-2
First Printing September 1995

Second Printing (Revised Edition) September 1998
Third Printing July 2001
Disclaimer
The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and are not the offical policies
or positions of the United States Department of Defense or the United States Government .
For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents

US Government Printing Office
Washington, D .C. 20402
To Keegie (eSchneider)
who so fully supported one of the editors in
the preparation of Llm book, and to Gertrude E .
and George H. (Schneider and ConsLance L . and
Linton E. Grlnter who lovingly and unselfishly
gave us a twentieth-century vantage point
to peer into the twenty-first century
THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK
Battlefield of the Future
21st Century Warfare Issues
Contents
Chapter Page
DISCLAIMER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ff
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ufi
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1 Principles of War for the Battlefield of the Future . . . . . . 5
Barry R. Schneider
Overview: New Era Warfare? A Revolution in Military
Affairs? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
2 New-Era Warfare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Gen Charles A. Homer, USAF, (Ret.)
3 The Revolution in Military Affairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Jeffrey McKitrick, James Blackwell, Fred Littlepage,
George Kraus, Richard Blanchfield and Dale Hill
Overview : Future Airpower and Strategy Issues . . . . . . . 99
4 Air Theory for the Twenty-First Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Col John A. Warden III, USAF
Parallel War and Hyperwan Is Every Want a Weakness? . . . 125
Col Richard Szafranski, USAF
Overview : Information Warfare Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
6 Information War - Cyberwar - Netwar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
George Stein
7 Information Warfare: Impacts and Concerns . . . . . . . . . . 171
Col James W. McLendon, USAF
Overview: Biological Warfare Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
8 The Biological Weapon : A Poor Nation's Weapon of
Mass Destruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Lt Col Terry N. Mayer, USAF
9 Twenty-First Century Germ Warfare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
Lt Col Robert P. Kadlec, MD, USAF
10 Biological Weapons for Waging Economic Warfare . . . . . 251
Lt Col Robert P. Kadlec, MD, USAF
11 On Twenty-First Century Warfare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
Lawrence E. Grinter and Dr. Barry R. Schneider
About the Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
IIlustrations
Figures
1 Elements of the Present RMA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
2 System Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
3 China and Iraq-Comparative Sizes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Tables
1 System Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
2 US Offensive Biological Weapons Agents

Produced Between 1954-1969 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
3 Estimated Cumulative Losses to the US from

Selected NonIndigenous Species, 1906-1991 . . . . . . . 257
Acknowledgments
We, the editors, wish to thank the authors for their timely
responses to our requests for quality work and for meeting
deadlines . At the Air War College, we wish to thank Dean
Ronald Kurth and Col Theodore Hailes, associate dean for
their championing of the Air War College Studies in National
Security series. Thanks also are due to Col Robert Hinds, our
department chairman, who gave us his support and
encouragement when we began work on this project. We also
appreciate Maj Gen Peter D. Robinson, Dr Alexander S .
Cochran, Dr Robert Wendzel, Dr David Sorenson, Dr Dan
Hughes, Dr Bill Martel, Col Joseph Englebrecht, and
D r George Stein, all Air War College faculty, who have taken
their time to review chapters written by others . Outside
reviewers who also contributed valuable suggestions include:
Mr David Kay (SAIC), Col John Ellen, USAF, retired
(SAIC), Col Phillip Gardiner, USAF, retired (SAIC), Dr Robert
Joseph, director of the NDU Counterproliferation Center ; and
Phillip E . Lacombe, managing director of the Aerospace
Education Foundation . Help was also provided by the Institute
for National Security Studies, USAFA, that supported part of
Dr Schneider's research on this project . We are also grateful to
MSgt Milton Turner for running interference on the budgetary
paperwork, and to Modeyither Jones and Linda Jenkins for
their administrative assistance that helped us turn this book
out in a timely fashion. At the Air University Press, we wish to
thank Dr Elizabeth Bradley, director ; Tom Mackin ; Thomas
Lobenstein; Rebecca McLeod ; Steven Garst; and other AU
Press editors that gave us valuable suggestions for improving
the manuscript in a timely fashion.
Barry R. Schneider & Lawrence E . Grinter

Introduction
This is a book about strategy and war fighting in the midst
of a revolution in military affairs as the world moves into the
twenty-first century . Its 11 essays examine topics such as
military operations against a well-armed rogue state or NASTI
(NBC-arming sponsor of terrorism and intervention) state; the
potential of parallel warfare strategy for different kinds of
states ; the revolutionary potential of information warfare ; the
lethal possibilities of biological warfare ; and the elements of
an ongoing revolution in military affairs (RMA) .
The book's purpose is to focus attention on the operational
problems, enemy strategies, and threats that will confront US
national security decision makers in the twenty-first century.
The participating authors are either professional military
officers or civilian professionals who specialize in national
security issues. Two of the architects of the US air campaign
in the 1991 Gulf War have contributed essays that discuss the
evolving utility of airpower to achieve decisive results and the
lessons that might portend for the future of warfare .
In "Principles of War on the Battlefield of the Future," which
sets the tone for the book, Dr. Barry Schneider examines how
traditional principles of war may have to be reassessed in light
of a proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) among
third world states. Regarding the principle of "mass," traditional
theory dictated that forces be massed for an offensive
breakthrough . But Schneider argues that, against an enemy
armed with WMD, dispersal of one's forces may, in fact, be
more prudent, and fighting by means of "disengaged combat"
prior to a decisive strike may be necessary. This requires high
coordination and "superior targeting and damage assessment
intelligence, combined with superior high-tech weapons ."
Still, the United States and its allies would not likely be able
to dominate a future battlefield even with advanced
conventional arms if they did not have close-in air bases to
operate from and thereby to achieve air dominance over the
battle space . Therefore, while it sounds good, striking from
outside the enemy's range is not a real option for long if the
enemy is mounting a ground campaign that is closing in on
vital areas. Local air, sea, and ground power will be needed to
contain the adversary forces and roll them back . This means
local air bases and seaports must be available and protected .
Yet, the US and allied armed forces, in confronting a
Saddam Hussein with nuclear, biological, or chemical (NBC)
warfare capabilities might be well advised to forego massing
forces (which present lucrative targets to the enemy's WMD) in
favor of maneuver, dispersion, speed, mobility, range, and
deception. How to protect fixed installations such as ports and
airfields is a dilemma. Furthermore, Schneider tells us, the
principle of maintaining the "offensive" may have to be
supplemented "with a combination of potent defenses to avoid
lethal enemy "DI counterstrikes ."
In twenty-first-century warfare, theater missile defenses
(TMD) are likely to be essential, especially against future rogue
regimes possessing nuclear, biological, or chemical warheads
and ballistic missile delivery systems. These could pose a
threat against US and allied forces, ports, airfields, naval
convoys, and cities within range that only effective multilayered
TMD may be able to handle .
When facing a WMD-armed adversary, it will be even more
important than in the past to preserve "unity of command" via
effective command, control, and communications during a
conflict . Moreover, it is highly likely that, in an era of "infor-
mation warfare," both sides will attempt and may be able to
disrupt and destroy each other's command and control systems.
Regarding the principle of clear, obtainable "objectives,"
Schneider argues that war with a nuclear-armed terrorist
state "must either be a short victorious war that starts with
the neutralization or destruction of the enemy's WMD, or one
fought for limited objectives and prosecuted with deep respect
for the power of the adversary's mass destruction capabilities ."
This would require a revolution in the way US regional
"war-fighting" commanders in chief prepare for major regional
conflicts (MRC) . It might be difficult for US decision makers to
"sell" such a strategy to an American public, given our
penchant for quick, decisive victories .
Finally, "security" as a principle of war demands exceptionally
good intelligence . In the future, it will be especially important
to identify those states acquiring WMD and missile
capabilities and to gauge their locations and numbers from
the outset of a conflict. This will be difficult because rogue
proliferator states greatly complicate accurate intelligence on
their paths to acquiring WMD by pursuing multiple
clandestine paths to such capabilities . These paths include
the use of underground secret facilities, camouflage,
disinformation, dispersal, cheating on Non-Proliferation Treaty
requirements, purchasing "dual use" technologies, and other
means to disguise their programs and hide their facilities . The
discovery after the Gulf War of how far Iraq had progressed in
acquiring nuclear, biological, chemical, and ballistic missile
capabilities was a wake-up call to the world community .
In summary, the dangers of confronting an adversary with
weapons of mass destruction or the capacity for strategic
information warfare may prompt a very different thinking
about the traditional "principles of war." Preparing for such an
eventuality will require some major changes in C3I (command,
control, communications, and intelligence), military doctrine,
operational strategy, acquisition, equipment, logistics,
coalition building, coalition warfare, and war termination .
Some changes may even be necessary in foreign policy
regarding the kinds of commitments that US vulnerabilities,
capabilities, and interests will permit in a more proliferated
world or one where the enemy has utilized the technologies
and methods of information warfare .
Chapter 1
Principles of War for the

Battlefield of the Future
Barry R. Schneider
The United States would have fought its wars of the past
half century far differently had Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, Kim Il
Sung, Mao Tse-tung, Ho Chi Minh, Manuel Noriega, and
Saddam Hussein possessed nuclear weapons at the time .
A world of nuclear-armed states will require the United
States and its allies to revise force structures, strategy and
doctrine, intelligence capabilities, command and control
procedures, and logistics for major regional conflict
scenarios . A proliferated world of potential adversaries
equipped with weapons of mass destruction and the means
of delivering them will require the US military to implement
a "revolution in military affairs," one that may require
significant departures from current US strategy, operational
policies, and military capabilities .)
Clearly, US force planning and conflict preparation have
not yet taken into account a "Saddam Hussein with nukes"
to use Les Aspin's phrase when he announced the US
Defense Counterproliferation Initiative . The Bottom Up
Review, conducted by the Clinton Administration under
then-Secretary of Defense Aspin, did not assume the United
States would confront an adversary armed with weapons of
mass destruction in either of the two nearly simultaneous
major regional conflicts (MRCs) that US forces are supposed
to be able to fight and win. Yet, it is clear that radical and
hostile states such as Iraq and Iran are probably just a few
short years away from having a nuclear weapons capability
and North Korea may already possess one . All three are
presently credited with biological and chemical weapons
capabilities .
Implications for Military Strategy
So how do you fight a NBC-armed sponsor of terrorism and

intervention (NASTI) on the battlefield, if war breaks out? Do
the old principles of war work in this kind of conflict? And just
what are those principles which have guided US and allied
forces in past wars? In the United States, even young ROTC
students are taught the elements of war, summed up by the
acronym MOSSCOMES :
M- Mass
O - Offensive
S - Surprise
S - Security
C - Command Unity
O - Objective
M- Maneuver
E - Economy of Force
S - Simplicity
Seven of these principles were extracted from the works of

British major general J. F. C. Fuller, who provided them for
the instruction of the British Army in World War 1.2 They were
then republished in a 1921 US Army training regulation and
have been passed on in Air Force, Army, and Joint doctrine
and professional military education publications since . 3
Some of General Fuller's ideas may be applied without
modification to future war against hostile radical adversaries
armed with weapons of mass destruction. Other principles of
war have to be modified to reflect changes in technology or
situation . For example, WMD in enemy hands suggests that
future commanders modify the way they apply the war-
fighting principles of mass, maneuver, command unity, and
taking the offensive initiative in combat . New technology
provides new _stealthy means of achieving surprise, and
end-of-war residual enemy WMD capability may very well alter
allied approaches to security and war termination ends and
means .
Further, there are some additional principles of war that
Fuller did not address that deserve attention in an era marked
PRINCIPLES OF WAR
by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. These

include the advantages to be gained by simultaneity and depth
of attack, effective force-projection logistics, information
dominance, and precision targeting.
What is new and what is constant in this brave new
proliferated world? Let us look first at the principle of "mass"
in warfare .
The Principle of Mass in Warfare
The principle of mass suggests the wisdom of concentrating

superior combat power at the decisive place and time in
military operations in order to achieve decisive results .4 This
massing of resources directed at key enemy vulnerabilities
helps one's own forces to retain the initiative and makes it
possible, together with the proper application of other
principles of war, for outnumbered forces to achieve break-
throughs and decisive war, campaign, and battle results.
For example, Mao Tse-tung in his guerrilla war strategy
emphasized the importance of achieving local superiority in
battle even though one's own forces were greatly outnumbered
overall in the conflict across all major theaters. His tactics
when engaging the enemy called for ten against one, even if
outnumbered ten to one at the strategic level . In Mao's
strategy, proper choice of the time, place, and ratio of engaged
forces could shift victory from the hands of larger-but-more
diffused enemy forces, to those of less numerous-but-more
highly concentrated forces that achieved greater mass at the
points of contact . 5
When J. F. C . Fuller wrote his treatise on the principles of
war in World War I, mass was strongly correlated with
numbers of ground troops concentrated in a given location
against enemy ground forces in close proximity. Today, such
massed units would be vulnerable to a different type of mass
derived from weapons of mass destruction and precision
guided munitions delivered by missiles, aircraft, or superguns .6
This gives a new meaning to "local superiority."
Ideally, US forces can catch regional opponents in a
paradigm shift, where the adversaries may adhere to the older
notions of mass-that is massing of their armies . US forces

can substitute the application of massed firepower for massed
troops . In such a competition, massed allied firepower could
put to flight or destroy massed enemy units .
The increased lethality of conventional weapons has led to
progressively greater dispersion of forces in the field with each
passing era. For example, the density of troops deployed in the
battle zone has decreased from an average of 4,790 troops per
square kilometer in the Napoleonic Wars to just 2.34 troops
per square kilometer in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. WMD
threats will accelerate a historical trend toward a progressively
emptier battlefield .
As military technology has improved over time, firepower
has increased and the size of units directing it and trying to
avoid it has decreased.
As one analyst observes:
The logical end point of such developments (advanced
conventional arms and WMD) is the replacement of the notion of
concentration of mass with one emphasizing concentration of
fire . Increasingly, modern armies of the future should achieve
breakthroughs and victory without resorting to large masses of
troops directed at vulnerable points . Instead, the combination of
rapidly firing systems, precision weapons of long range, and
advanced command and control systems will allow widely
dispersed forces to focus their fire on specific points .$
Indeed, in combat with an adversary armed with WMD, one

corollary to Fuller's dictum on "mass" is that dispersing one's
own forces can make enemy WMD less cost-effective . A second
corollary is that massed allied firepower needs to be directed
first to destroying or degrading enemy WMD at the inception of
combat to permit the later massing of one's own general
purpose forces for combat in the war-termination phase of the
conflict .
Just as in the American Civil War and World War I, when
massed offenses were slaughtered by heavily concentrated
defensive firepower, the future possession of WMD in enemy
hands should discourage the use massing of allied troops until
after the opponents WMD are silenced or neutralized.9 If it
looks like disabling early strikes cannot neutralize enemy
WMD in a projected conflict, perhaps such an adversary
PRINCIPLES OF WAR
should not be engaged in the first place, provided that is an

option (i.e ., if the war has not yet begun and if one's homeland
and forces are not already engaged) .
Unfortunately, in some inherently unstable situations, if the
adversary were to strike first with weapons of mass
destruction, he might achieve victory, at least temporarily, in a
regional conflict . If the adversary is vulnerable to an allied
preemptive strike, he would have an incentive to use his WMD
first. Such a perceived "use or lose", situation is inherently
unstable and unpredictable, especially in a crisis or escalating
conflict .
Some analysts even suggest that the development of very
advanced conventional armaments, combined with new
strategy and organization of forces, can be a "revolution in
military affairs," making the massing of troops impractical and
dangerous. Thus, one of three courses of action may be
adopted by the allied commander when faced with a NASTI
armed force :
" Desert Storm II: Proceed as if the threat did not exist,
except to rely upon escalation dominance to deter the
adversary from escalating to WMD use in the conflict .
" Dispersed Storm: Adopt many measures to protect the
allied force, such as disinformation, extended dispersal
of units, downsizing of units, constant mobility, passive
defenses, and active defenses while still engaging in
traditional forms of warfare, relying also on escalation
dominance to preserve intrawar deterrence of enemy
WMD use.
" Remote Engagement : Adopt a mode of "disengaged
combat," where allied forces conduct their military opera-
tions at a substantial remove from their enemies . t o
The first approach is the same approach that the United

States and its coalition took with regard to possible Iraqi use of
its biological warfare (BM, chemical warfare (CW), and Scud
assets in the 1991 Gulf War. In this conflict, despite the
vulnerability of allied forces and capitals, the allies used
counterforce strikes and active and passive defenses to protect
against Iraqi air and Scud attacks and used escalation
dominance to deter the possible Iraqi use of available BW and

CW assets . This combination might work again in the future if
the adversary is similarly outclassed in the air, and where the
preponderance of high-tech weapons is held by the allies .
Nevertheless, it is a risky strategy that might backfire with
huge downside results .
The second approach is where forces similar to those sent to
the Gulf War are given far more protection, by much improved
air defenses, missile defenses, and passive defenses . The
regional CINC would also reduce the number of lucrative
theater targets available to the enemy by an extensive
dispersal of his own forces and logistical units and by very
pronounced use of mobility to increase enemy uncertainty
concerning the location of key allied forces.
The third approach is where the main allied force stays
outside of enemy range and attempts to pick off his WMD and
destroy his massed forces by air, missile, and special forces
attacks before sending the bulk of the expeditionary force to
engage him in the endgame. In remote engagements, the allied
force would attempt to outrange the adversary and degrade his
capability before closing and attempting to finish the conflict
on allied terms.
In the future, friendly forces may be well advised to avoid,
where possible, close massed engagements with heavily armed
enemy forces . Instead, they likely should adopt the Dispersed
Storm or Remote Engagement postures as a mode of
operations out of respect for the possible consequences of an
enemy WMD strike, particularly if the adversary develops a
capability well beyond that achieved by Iraq in 1991 .
There are trade-offs in adopting the Dispersed Storm mode
of operations . On the one hand, failure to mass one's own
troops can make them more vulnerable to enemy conventional
attacks . Moreover, it would be difficult to conduct normal
conventional operations in a dispersed mode. On the other
hand, one would run less risk of having main force units
obliterated by enemy WMD strikes in this mode. The tradeoffs
of adopting the Remote Engagement mode of operations, when
facing an enemy with WMD, has received less discussion, and
deserves to be considered first.
10
PRINCIPLES OF WAR
Some would argue that if the United States is faced with

such a formidable opponent, the allies probably should first
attempt to outrange them, dealing punishment from a
distance while staying out of harm's way. In the words of
former heavyweight boxing champion, Muhammed Ali, US and
allied forces should "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee." On
the other hand, getting bogged down in massed armor and
artillery duels, providing mass targets to enemy advanced
weapons, is a route to heavy casualties and possible defeat .
If military forces follow the strategy of disengaged combat,
the battle front may be hard to find . Indeed, in such remote
engagement warfare, it may not exist. The initial stages of
combat might find two heavily armed rival forces, both
dispersed, striking at each other from a distance, each
attempting to secure an advantage by locating and striking the
other's key units and assets, while simultaneously trying
to stay out of harm's way from the massive and precise
capabilities of the other.
If remote engagement were adopted as a strategy, then only
after sufficient damage has been inflicted on the adversary via
disengaged combat, would an attempt be made to close and
force a capitulation . If the adversary's weapons of mass
destruction have been eliminated with high confidence, this
war-termination phase of conflict might resemble more tradi-
tional forms of combat. The opening scenarios of remote combat
would require great standoff capabilities, the spreading and
hiding of forces, intensive intelligence, attrition of enemy
advanced capabilities, effective active and passive defensive
measures, and extensive coordination of fire from many
diverse points to the highest priority targets on the other side.
In such conflicts, each of the armed services would need to
be tightly coordinated with the others. Regional CINCs would
need complete connectivity to theater forces under their
command while likely having to operate from highly mobile
land hard-to-target command posts.
This suggests the need for superior generalship, superior
targeting and battle damage assessment intelligence, combined
with superior high-tech weapons . "Using the accuracy of
advanced sensors and precision weapons, US forces may be:
able to jockey just out of the range of enemy artillery, tanks,

and battlefield missiles, picking them off in turn ."' i
This kind of remote engagement conflict would require
changes in US strategy, doctrine, training, and organization .
Regional CINCs, in charge of fighting major regional conflicts,
would have to be schooled in a different kind of war fighting
from that pursued in the 1991 Gulf War, the 1964-74 Vietnam
War, the 1950-53 Korean War, or World War 11. Preliminary
extensive war gaming, in-the-field exercises, and operational
planning for the new type of warfare would be mandatory for
later success in the region of combat.
An enemy with WMD or very advanced conventional
capabilities obviously poses severe dangers to choke points,
ports of entry, regional air bases, and naval convoys . For
example, aircraft carriers and their surrounding task forces
might be very vulnerable to an adversary armed with nuclear
or biological weapons . These floating airfields, capable of
carrying up to 100 aircraft and holding a military population of
5,000 to 6,000, represent highly lucrative targets and may be
inappropriate in the future for confronting such a very heavily
armed regional foe capable of obliterating or sinking them.
The US Navy in future combat against a "Saddam Hussein
with nukes" may be forced to operate from more numerous,
smaller, less expensive and more dispersed platforms,
emphasizing ballistic and cruise missiles rather than naval
aircraft as theater strike weapons. These might be augmented
by longer-range, air-refueled, naval fighter-bombers launched
from carriers outside the range of enemy aircraft or missiles
that carried the threat of WMD bombardment and obliteration .
How far the US Navy needs to go in these directions will be
determined partly by how successful it is in developing fleet
defenses against ballistic and cruise missiles.
The US Army, likewise, may be forced to move away from
strong reliance on heavy tanks and armored personnel carriers
that fight close to enemy forces. Rather, Army units may be
required to hit and locate the enemy at much greater ranges,
at least in the earlier phases of battle, rather than close and
attempt to destroy the NASTI enemy with heavy mechanized
forces before his WMD capabilities have been neutralized . As
one defense analyst observes, "such armored forces are
12
PRINCIPLES OF WAR
designed to fight a war that US commanders should attempt to

avoid, not bring about." 12
US Air Force officials have become convinced that massed
bomber attacks are less productive than a few stealthy bombers
firing or dropping precision munitions at targets from a stand-
off mode. A few low-observable aircraft are now able to penetrate
enemy defenses with very few losses and inflict, via increased
accuracy, greater damage than whole air armadas previously
could inflict using less accurate bombs and missiles.
As one Air Force analyst notes, with the revolution in
accuracy, "it no longer took hundreds of bombers dropping
thousands of bombs or even tens of bombers dropping scores
of bombs to destroy a single target. Now, one aircraft often
delivering only one weapon, could destroy one target ." 13
A third element of "mass" to be considered in combat with
very heavily armed opponents is the need for whole-unit
reinforcements . Armies, divisions, naval task forces, or air
bases brought under NBC missile attack may suffer such
wholesale losses in such short time periods that they may
entirely cease to function as cohesive military units . In such
horrific circumstances, front-line units may need to be replaced
by entire units of similar capability and numbers, perhaps
under new commanders due to the massive and traumatic
nature of the losses suffered from WMD bombardment .
Nuclear detonations, lethal nerve gas attacks, or clouds of
deadly biological agents could annihilate entire defense sectors
and open large gaps in friendly forces that could be filled only
with fresh units that retained their cohesion and command,
control, and communications linkages .
Thus, when confronting a NASTI, or even a hostile state
possessing very advanced conventional arms, it appears wise
to rethink the advisability of massing one's own troops .
Consider, for example, how different the outcomes of warfare
might have been in the past half century if US forces and
those of the Allies had to consider German nuclear strikes
against the Normandy beachhead, Italian biological weapons
at Anzio, or Japanese nerve gas blanketing US invasion forces
at Iwo Jima.
Faced with WMD bombardment, would the allies have been
able to hold the Pusan beachhead or successfully mount the
13
Inchon invasion during the Korean War? Indeed, would the US

nuclear threat communicated to Beijing via the Indian govern-
ment have been credible if the People's Republic of China also
had possessed nuclear warheads and long-range aircraft in
1953? In the 1990-91 Gulf War, how would things have been
different if Iraq had possessed even a few nuclear weapons and
had been prepared to use them prior to the allied ground
offensive while coalition troops were massing in Saudi Arabia?
The Principle of Maneuver in Warfare
Perhaps far greater emphasis will have to be placed on

maneuver, the second "M" in J.F.C. Fuller's principles of war,
rather than on the first "M," mass. Inherent in maneuver is the
idea that mobility enhances both offensive and defensive
capabilities as well as one's ability to achieve a viable deterrent
and escalation superiority in both peace and war.
Coupled with the need for maneuver is the concept of
dispersion. Armies in modern times are increasingly mobile
and dispersed due to increases in battlefield lethality and
other technical changes. Moving and spreading out gives the
adversary less probability of targeting success and less of a
target to hit. Prudence would advise spreading friendly forces
even more in the future to expose fewer of them to any single
WMD attack .
On the other hand, this need to disperse forces can greatly
hinder conventional combat capability . An army dispersed will
have less capability for achieving local superiority and
breakthroughs against its opponents armed forces and less
opportunity for battle and war termination until the main
weapons of the enemy are silenced.
The need to simultaneously guard against vulnerability to
WMD attack and to conduct a conventional campaign will
impose contradictory pressures on regional CINCs planning
future campaigns . Such dual concerns might prevent quick,
decisive engagements in the future that are based on the 1991
Gulf War model . Instead, future armies may be forced to fight
more at the low-intensity warfare level or to engage in
prolonged conventional wars of attrition while avoiding
14
PRINCIPLES OF WAR
presenting the enemy with the opportunity for a knockout

blow delivered by their WMD.
Victorious armies facing NASTIs may be more preoccupied
with active defense, passive defenses, mobility, dispersion, and
concealment than with conventional offensive actions that
could get them annihilated . Indeed, the lethality of the future
battle area may be so great that a new vision of defensive deploy-
ment is required while simultaneously adding new urgency to
the locating, targeting, and destroying of enemy launchers and
storage compounds for enemy weapons of mass destruction
and the adversary's very advanced conventional weapons .
The Principle of Offensive Initiative in Warfare
One of the principles of war found in US military doctrine is

the necessity to "seize, retain, and exploit the initiative" in
combat. 14 Maintaining the offensive initiative in warfare is
important to victory, and also helps avoid defeat . An enemy on
his heels is seldom an enemy at your throat . There is still
some truth to the old adage that the best defense is a good
offense . A good offense that keeps the adversary busy
defending his own forces and homeland robs him of some of
the potential to carry the fight to yours .
Unfortunately, offensive operations under attack by enemy
WMD, or the threat of such an attack, can be difficult to
execute. US Army operations during its Combined Arms in a
Nuclear/Chemical Environment (CANE) exercises have shown
that enemy WMD very much hindered "Blue" forces' offensive
success . As one report summarized, "during offensive
operations, it was noted that:
" attacks and engagements lasted longer;
" fewer enemy forces were killed ;
" friendly forces suffered more casualties;
" friendly forces fired fewer rounds at the enemy;
" fratricide increased ;
" terrain was used less effectively for cover and
concealment." 15
15
Unfortunately, as two Army analysts point out, "the

introduction of NBC weapons on the battlefield by an
opponent gives him the initiative ." 16 Such actions, or even the
threat of WMD strikes, place allied forces somewhat on the
defensive and give the initiative to the opponent, since allied
commanders and units are forced to take fewer risks in
exposing themselves to such lethality .
Enemy use of WMD can create residual radioactive, chemical,
or biological contamination of the battle area, hindering allied
ability to act for hours, days, or even weeks after their use.
Protective clothing, exhaustive decontamination procedures,
extensive vaccination programs, administration of antidotes,
and the caution borne of fear in an anthrax, highly toxic
chemical, or radioactive environment can easily degrade the
offensive performance and mind-set of allied forces subject to
WMD bombardment . Maneuver may also be limited in battle
space so contaminated .
US Army war games suggest that enemy WMD can negatively
impact allied efforts to maintain the initiative, maneuver
through the battlefield, synchronize forces, and project power
into certain highly dangerous and contaminated areas . 17
Moreover, while conducting offensive operations, allied forces
faced with WMD threats will need to operate under a defensive
shield to survive and succeed . Thus, in future wars against
enemies armed with weapons of mass destruction, in contrast
to General Fuller's day, it will be important to supplement
offensive strikes to disarm the adversary's WMD with a
combination of potent defenses to avoid lethal enemy
preemptions or counterstrikes to degrade the threat .
In the classic case, when dealing with a Saddam Hussein
with WMD, the US military commander is faced with a dual
need . First, he would like to neutralize both the enemy
leadership and his WMD potential . This means the
prosecution of counter-leader targeting coupled with an all-out
bombardment of likely enemy WMD capabilities and
production facilities . If this opening phase of the conflict is not
totally successful, the allied operations should be prepared to
shift dramatically from the offensive to the defensive mode, or
take enormous risks that whole sectors of the allied forces
might be destroyed if not dispersed into a defensive mode .
16
PRINCIPLES OF WAR
Col John Warden, one of the air architects of the allied

victory in the 1991 Gulf War, postulates that future war will
feature parallel strikes aimed at all the key facets of an
adversary's state and force, that, if struck nearly simultaneously,
will inflict strategic paralysis and quick defeat on the
adversary. Airpower, he argues, is the instrument of choice for
such "parallel war."
Such simultaneous, parallel strikes are a fine example of the
value of retaining the offensive initiative in warfare, and the
paralysis such strikes inflicted on Iraq in 1991 shows their
value in keeping an adversary from taking the offensive
himself. Simultaneous, parallel, in-depth attacks throughout
the battle space is likely to remain as part of US military
doctrine into the foreseeable future . For example, the US
Army's "Force XXI Operations" study states :
Future American operations will induce massive systemic shock
to an enemy. These operations will be meant to force the loss or
deny the enemy any opportunity to take the initiative . 18
Similarly, US air doctrine emphasizes the use of new

technologies such as stealth aircraft, stealthy cruise missiles,
and precision guidance to give the advantages of surprise and
offensive initiative to their possessor since these weapons are
difficult to detect and allow airpower to go where it wishes
without major losses in pursuit of strategic or tactical
targets . 19 Indeed, "aerospace power can quickly concentrate
on or above any point on the earth's surface . Aerospace
power can exploit the principles of mass and maneuver
simultaneously to a far greater extent than surface forces. 20
However, unless the initial offensive in such hyperwar and
parallel war renders inoperable the enemy's ability to strike
back with weapons of mass destruction or with his most
capable advanced conventional weaponry, then the conflict
may feature a parallel war air blitzkrieg coupled with the
pullback and dispersal of allied ground and naval forces to
provide less inviting targets to possible massive enemy
counterattacks spearheaded by WMD targeted on US and
allied power projection forces in the region.
If total allied dominance of weapons of mass destruction is
not achieved, the endgame of a conflict will be extremely risky.
17
Will the enemy escalate at the end or will he be deterred from

launching NBC fusillades as his regime goes under? Will he
use some WMD and threaten more use still in an attempt to
achieve a better end-war settlement?
Or should allied forces keep out of range until such enemy
WMD can be destroyed or until the enemy leadership is killed
or replaced? If this is not possible, what then? It is possible
that the better part of valor might be to accept a compromise
peace that leaves the adversary regime and his military in
place rather than demanding total surrender as required of
Nazi Germany or Tojo's Japan in 1945 . If this option is
rejected, the allied side risks massive casualties, perhaps
numbering in the millions, before victory could be achieved
against a regional foe so heavily armed.
As in the 1991 Gulf War, the location of the enemy
leadership and his weapons of mass destruction may be
unknown. There will be a temptation at the inception of any
such conflict to target the enemy leader or leaders to create
disorganization and a regime change . However, the closes- such
counter-leader strike attempts come to success without
accomplishing the task, the greater the possibility that the
enemy regime will counter with desperate measures that might
include launching a nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons
attack, even if they face a clearly superior allied nuclear force
that enjoys escalation dominance .
How do you achieve victory or a measure of victory in
regional combat with such an enemy, and how do you, at the
same time, limit the damage inflicted on allied forces and allies
in the region of operations? Further, how do you limit damage
to the continental United States and allied countries during
such regional conflicts?
Until effective US and allied theater or strategic defenses are
developed and deployed in the regions where foes developing
or deploying WMD are located, efforts to counter such threats
will have to rely upon deterrence of the adversary or on allied
conventional offensive capabilities .
While it would be the very rare contingency when the United
States or allied states could successfully identify, locate,
target, and destroy the force of a hostile radical state on the
verge of using WMD against the American homeland, US and
18
PRINCIPLES OF WAR
allied forces in the region, or allied countries, there may be a

few opportunities where allied intelligence can pinpoint such
preparations and strike a blow to disarm such an adversary
with high confidence .
Nor is it wise to use all the military potential the United
States possesses, since the use of US nuclear arms to strike
the enemy WMD targets would likely entail too many political,
economic, diplomatic, legal, and moral negatives . 21
In some cases, this imperative to use conventional weapons
only, would make it impossible to disarm an adversary arming
itself with WMD since conventional weapons may not be
capable of.
" destroying deeply buried and hardened bunkers
containing WMD assets ;
" area targeting of widely dispersed but "soft" mobile
enemy WMD assets ;
" burning enemy biological weapons ingredients that
were otherwise likely to be spread across the region if
impacted by conventional bombing.
For these and a number of other reasons, reliance on

conventional offenses alone to end the WMD threat would be
unwise, because the penetration of allied defense by even a
single enemy nuclear, biological, or chemical warhead might
be lethal across a wide area . Theater missile defenses are also
needed.
Only the combination of offensive suppression strikes
coupled with defensive interception capabilities could provide
any possibility of the regional "astrodome" protection needed
against such unforgiving weapons, where even a single enemy
warhead "leaker" through the defenses could devastate a port,
base, airfield, naval convoy, massed army, or population
center.
What makes the damage limitation enterprise even thinkable,
once war has begun, is that the enemy may possess only a
half dozen or so of such weapons at the time of a conflict, few ,
enough so that it is possible for an allied offense-defense
combination to neutralize the threat .
19
The Principle of Unity of Command in Warfare
Another principle of war laid out by Gen J. F. C . Fuller is

that of the requirement for unity of command . Maintaining
good command, control, communications, and intelligence
(C 3 1) could become much easier in future MRCs as a result of
the ongoing revolution in information technology available to
allied commanders. This information revolution will provide
more information earlier, and in far greater detail about the
opponent's capabilities, locations, and activities than known
in previous wars .
Moreover, such a communications revolution will lead to
flatter organization structures and to greater force-wide
awareness of allied and enemy dispositions in real time . This
will enhance the control of central commanders while, at the
same time, permitting wider dispersal of friendly forces . The
US Army's "Force = Operations" report states that
advances in information management and distribution will
facilitate the horizontal integration of the battlefield functions
and aid commanders in tailoring forces and arranging them on
land . . . . Units, key nodes, and leaders will be more widely
dispersed leading to the continuation of the empty battlefield
phenomenon.22
The challenge to effective command, control, and communica-

tions in a major regional conflict could be immense . If the
adversary has the capability of decapitating the US or allied
military commands, of decapitating regional allied govern-
ments, of targeting the US National Command Authority, or of
"leveling the playing field" by knocking out most allied
communications with a high-altitude nuclear explosion
emitting a destructive electromagnetic pulse (EMP), it could
destroy the unity of command of the allied forces in the region .
If the regional adversary was at a severe disadvantage in
NBC weapons, he might still make effective use of his limited
capability by atmospheric nuclear bursts of EMP that could
play havoc with allied telecommunications, navigation, radar,
aircraft, missiles, automated guns, APCs, tanks, trucks, and
any microchips or electrical circuits that are not protected
against EMP.
20
PRINCIPLES OF WAR
The enemy WMD threat might even extend beyond the

theater of war to the capitals of allied countries, including even
Washington, D.C. It may be possible that the adversary has
aircraft or missiles capable of reaching such capitals. Even if
this was not technically possible, it is conceivable that
nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons could be delivered
against such cities by unconventional means via saboteurs
smuggling them in the allied countries and detonating them or
threatening to do so to achieve favorable diplomatic
concessions at the end of the conflict .
Unfortunately, most allied capitals are highly vulnerable to
WMD threats. For example, Washington, D.C ., has long been a
vulnerable target and will remain so in the foreseeable
future .23 A clandestine nuclear detonation in the city would
likely doom the US president, the vice president, Cabinet
members, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and members of Congress
who were there at the time . The chaos that such an attack
would cause would be difficult to overstate . One of the more
difficult questions to answer in the hours after such a NASTI
decapitation attack would be "who is in charge here?"
This chaos would be compounded if the headquarters housing
the US regional CINC and his staff also were to suffer a similar
decapitation strike at the same time. It is possible that the
national leadership and the regional military forces of the
United States would be plunged into chaos for sometime .
The threat of communication disruption and command disable-
ment in conflicts with NASTIs leads to several conclusions
regarding the preservation of unity of command in such conflicts :
" Command unity may have to give way to subcommand
dispersal under a preset unified contingency plan;
" Military units may need to be more autonomous and
dependent on prewar planning of operations;
" Unit commanders will need simpler, less frequent
updates from central headquarters ;
" Alternative commanders in mobile and hardened com-
mand posts will be needed for all regional and supporting
CINCs, with trained backups in reserve several layers
deep, ready to assume command if and when the CINCs
are targeted, killed, or isolated from their forces;
21
" Military forces may have to be guided and organized

similarly to distributed computer networks, with greater
autonomy, independence of action, and ability to
operate independent of central command while still
following command guidelines.
The Principle of Clear

Obtainable Objectives in Warfare
Wars, like chess matches, are generally characterized by

opening moves, both offensive and defensive, by a middle
game exchange, and by a decisive endgame . 24 Central and
theater commanders should begin each phase of the conflict
with the desired end in mind, with each phase designed to
move the situation forward toward the goal. The United States
Army Field Manual FM 100-5 states that commanders ought
to "direct every military operation towards a clearly defined,
decisive, and attainable objective."
In the Persian Gulf, President Bush defined the US and
allied objective simply as the freeing of Kuwait from Iraqi
occupation and the establishment of agreed borders between
Iraq and Kuwait. Once beaten in the field of battle, the regime
of Saddam Hussein was allowed to remain in power, although
restrictions were placed upon Iraqi military units, UN
inspectors were sent into Iraq to locate its nuclear, biological,
and chemical weapons as well as its ballistic missiles for the
purpose of destroying them . Iraq was prohibited from most
international trade or exports, and was especially limited from
profiting from oil exports until it was deemed to be in full com-
pliance with peace terms negotiated at the end of the Gulf War.
President Bush's decision to stop the fighting when he did
was controversial . Many thought he should have directed US
and allied forces to proceed on to Baghdad when he had the
Iraqi military on the run and in chaos, continuing the conflict
so long as Saddam Hussein and his cabinet controlled the
Iraqi government and military forces.
It has been argued that President Bush's decision was made
in line with the principle of war that says to direct every
22
PRINCIPLES OF WAR
military operation towards a clearly defined, decisive, and

attainable objective . First, the decision to end the conflict once
Iraqi troops were expelled from Kuwait was a clearly defined
objective. The war aim, as agreed at the United Nations when
the allied coalition was formed, was not to occupy Iraq, replace
the present Iraqi government, or govern Iraq during a
transition period to another regime .
President Bush complied with the United Nations resolutions
authorizing the collective security action and the limited goals
embraced by the whole US-led coalition. To go further might
have led to a split in the coalition and would have been on
uncertain legal grounds.
Second, despite the US decision to halt Desert Storm
operations short of a ground occupation of Iraq, the campaign
was, nevertheless, decisive in securing the liberation of Kuwait
and in inflicting a decisive defeat and surrender of all Iraqi
forces stationed outside of Iraq's borders .
Third, President Bush's objective in the Gulf conflict was
quite attainable . Not only was Kuwait liberated, but, after
three years, the Iraqi parliament has finally agreed to drop
claims to Kuwaiti territory and recognize the borders of Kuwait
as legitimate .
President Bush's decision to keep to such clearly defined,
decisive, and attainable objectives was determined by the
calculation that to go further and invade Iraq would have gone
beyond the UN resolutions authorizing the collective action .
Such action, it was thought, would endanger the support of
coalition partners needed to legitimize the subsequent peace
arrangements and whose support the United States would
need to guard its interests in future dealings in the Middle
East and the Persian Gulf. Further, President Bush and his
advisers understood the difficulties of conquering Iraq,
locating and capturing Saddam Hussein and his subordinate,
leaders, subduing the remnants of the Iraqi military
throughout a country larger than Germany, and governing a
hostile population of almost 20 million while seeking to set up
a friendly regime.
The Bush administration was also eager to avoid further
bloodshed, having just won the victory in Kuwait at a human
cost well below what had been predicted for the ground
23
campaign (150 US dead as opposed to predictions that ranged

up to 15,000) . President Bush and Secretary of Defense Dick
Cheney saw entry into Iraq as a quagmire to be avoided and
ended the fighting while the allies were well ahead and had
attained their immediate stated goals.
Realpolitik may also have been a factor in the United States's
decision to stop when it did. Prior to the 1990 invasion of
Kuwait, the United States had been more concerned with
containing Iranian power rather than Iraqi power in the region .
After all, it was Iran under the ayatollahs who seized American
hostages at the US embassy in Tehran in 1979, and who was
seen as the chief exporter of anti-American sentiments, and
who was seen as the chief exporters of terror worldwide . The
fact that Iraq, if totally disarmed by the allied coalition, could
not offset the expansionist ambitions of Iran was still another
argument for not entering Iraq and totally dismantling its
military power in 1991 .
Finally, it is likely that President Bush and his political
advisors also wished to reap the political fruits of an almost
total victory in Kuwait as opposed to entering the political
minefield of an invasion, extended military campaign, and
occupation of Iraq. By stopping when he did, President Bush
received an unprecedented 93 percent approval rating in polls
of the American public in the aftermath of the war.
The decisive victory, stopped at its apex, also sent an
unchallenged message around the world about US military
prowess and American willingness to act decisively against
aggression when it felt its vital interests were at stake . This
enhanced US reputation in the world could be used to deter
other would-be aggressors in places like North Korea, the
Persian Gulf, and elsewhere . US credibility had never been
higher since the end of World War II, a recovery from the years
following the Vietnam War.
Given these arguments in support of President Bush's
decision to follow limited war aims in 1991, there is still
controversy over whether stopping short of Baghdad was an
act of wisdom or short-sightedness . Some believe that the
allies should have finished the regime of Saddam Hussein
when they had the opportunity to act decisively against him.
Time has shown that he has a remarkable ability to survive
24
PRINCIPLES OF WAR
politically in Iraq, and Iraq has been able to reconstitute much

of its conventional military capability even under the terms of
the truce. Moreover, Iraq retains the scientific base, foreign
supplier contacts, potential wealth from its oil reserves, and
ambitions for future great-power status .
Once UN sanctions are lifted on Iraq, many believe that
country will be back in the WMD business full-scale . Indeed,
resurrection of its biological weapons stockpile should be
simple since the allies never found it and therefore did not
destroy it. Iraq is given two years of full scale effort before it
could be at 1991 levels again in its nuclear weapons research,
and less than a decade after that before it could join the
nuclear weapons club.
Indeed, not to have deposed Saddam Hussein, when the
chance presented itself, may be to have defined the US and UN
objective too narrowly at the onset of the Gulf conflict since it
is arguable whether the US and allied limited actions achieved
a lasting end to the Iraqi threat or merely postponed the
confrontation with an Iraq armed with NBC weapons and the
missiles to deliver them on target.
The symptoms were treated and their effects mitigated, but
the disease persists that could be lethal next time to US
interests and allies in the Gulf region. One evidence of
Saddam's persistent malevolence was the Iraqi-sponsored
attempt to kill former President Bush on his visit to Kuwait in
1993 . Leaving such an opponent alive and in power is like
allowing a rattlesnake to continue to live in your house after it
has attempted to kill you once, because you have temporarily
milked it of its venom, even though you know it will inevitably
produce more in time.
Permitting Saddam Hussein to remain in power to continue
to threaten his neighbors and US interests in the region, by
stopping at the Iraq-Kuwait border, is analogous to having
allowed Adolph Hitler to remain in control of Germany in 1945
because the Allies decided to stop at Germany's borders once
German armies had been expelled from the lands that they
occupied from 1939-1945.
Given the track record of Iraq, a state that has been at war
with its neighbors since its inception, and of Saddam Hussein,
whose regime has constantly used murderous violence against
25
its opponents inside Iraq and aggressive war against its

neighbors since he took power, there is a high likelihood that
the Gulf War will have to be repeated in the future, perhaps
against an even more dangerous enemy .
To conclude, as former Secretary of Defense Caspar
Weinberger once advised, "if we do decide to commit forces to
combat overseas, we should have clearly defined political and
military objectives . And we should know precisely how our
forces can accomplish those clearly defined objectives." 25 This
is a useful guideline, even if it does not precisely tell you what
to do and where to draw the line on your prewar and postwar
aspirations .
The Principle of Security in Warfare
Good security means the enemy cannot achieve strategic

surprise. Such good security increasingly depends on accurate
and timely intelligence information to assess the threat and give
timely warning of it in an era when hostile and radical opponents
are about to acquire the most destructive ofweapons.
It has become increasingly difficult to predict the progress of
nonnuclear states as they approach obtaining an operational
WMD capability . Most of these regimes find it neither in their
political, economic, nor military interests to advertise their
progress or capabilities .
The international legal norm established by the NPT carries
pledges by the nuclear weapon states that they will not attack
nonnuclear signatories of the pact and that they will be
subject to sanctions if they violate that pledge . Aspiring
proliferators might hide behind their signatures on the NPT to
gain legal protection against intervention, particularly if the
evidence of their developing WMD is ambiguous.
Declared proliferators may also suffer unilateral cutoffs and
sanctions by triggering national legislation on the books in the
United States and among other states. These laws enforcing
international norms prohibiting proliferation also prescribe
various penalties for states that break from the ranks . Witness
the Pressler Amendment and the trade penalties inflicted on
Pakistan as a result of its nuclear weapons program .
26
PRINCIPLES OF WAR
Moreover, as Saddam Hussein learned in June 1981 when

his Osirak reactor was destroyed by Israeli warplanes, it does
not pay to develop WMD in high-profile, easily targeted
facilities . Instead, armed with great wealth from his oil
revenues, Saddam from 1981-1991 was able to move very
close to a nuclear weapons capability following a clandestine
approach . This model is the more likely one for aspirant states
to follow, namely:
" Pursuing multiple technical paths to NBC weapons ;
" Disguising and hiding WMD facilities, some underground ;
" Providing disinformation about WMD activities/locations ;
" Joining the NPT as a ruse while clandestinely cheating ;
" Using third parties to purchase WMD production
technology;
" Purchasing dual-use technologies allegedly for another
purpose ;
" Producing indigenously as many components of WMD as
possible ;
" Getting prospective contractors to fill gaps in WMD
knowledge through the bid and proposal process,
sometimes not letting the contract afterwards ;
" Buying as much WMD technology and resources on the
open market as possible from contractors all too ready
to help in return for substantial profits ;
" Hiring foreign NBC/missile expertise where local
expertise is lacking; and
" Purchasing WMD technology subcomponents, rather
than components, and assembling them inside their
country to reduce the audit trail.
Like the proverbial iceberg, just the tips of the North Korean
and Iranian nuclear weapons programs are visible, and they
probably indicate a much larger clandestine program operating
out of sight.
The rate of progress may be accelerated by the possibility of
transfers of scientific knowledge, highly enriched uranium (HEU)
or plutonium (PL), weapons designs, missiles, and nuclear
27
technology from the newly independent states of the former

Soviet Union, which have a surplus of underpaid nuclear
scientists and technicians, hundreds of tons of HEU and PL,
tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, a need for hard currency,
and an expanding criminal element with some access to the
widespread nuclear facilities of the former superpower.
According to US military doctrine, the United States should
never permit the enemy to acquire an unexpected advantage .

Security enhances freedom of action by reducing friendly
vulnerability to hostile acts, influence or surprise . . . . Thorough
knowledge and understanding of enemy strategy, tactics, and
doctrine and detailed staff planning can improve security and
reduce vulnerability to surprise .26
Vulnerability to surprise and attack can be reduced by a

combination of offensive and defensive measures . Security can
be maintained by a mix that includes :
Keeping allied escalation dominance to deter enemy

escalation to first use of WMD ;
" Allied counterforce strikes to destroy or reduce enemy
WMD assets ;
" Allied active defenses to intercept enemy missile or
aircraft attacks ;
" Use of passive defenses to protect friendly forces from the
effects of nuclear, biological, or chemical weapon attacks;
Any other measures designed to present less lucrative
targets to enemy WMD such as dispersion, mobility,
maintaining forces outside of enemy missile or aircraft
ranges, and introducing supply and reinforcement
means that are less vulnerable to NBC strikes .
No single approach may neutralize the WMD threat, but taken in

combination, these measures may greatly reduce the
vulnerability of friendly forces to NASTI surprises .
Improved allied capabilities to remotely detect adversary
nuclear, biological, chemical and missile assets on the ground
or en route to target, would also enhance security and help
avoid rude and devastating surprises by the enemy.
28
PRINCIPLES OF WAR
The Principle of Economy of Force in Warfare
Another principle of war set out in US military doctrine is to

"allocate minimum essential combat power to secondary
efforts."27 In other words, it is recommended that the US
commander should concentrate the majority of his military
power toward a clearly defined primary threat rather than
compromise the effort against secondary priorities . This
principle of war is based on the premise that the CINC will not
have unlimited resources and must accept some calculated
risks in secondary areas of importance in order to achieve
superiority in the priority area where the battle or conflict may
be decided .
On the grand strategic level, the United States has adopted
a strategy of preparing to fight two nearly simultaneous major
regional conflicts at the same time. Clearly, utilizing the prin-
ciple of economy of force, the United States would need to hold in
reserve enough force for a second MRC once the first one begins.
The principle of "economy of force" also would serve as a
guide to cutting back on secondary US military participation
such as in on-going UN peace operations in other regions-so
long as US forces are engaged in one or more major regional
conflicts, or lack the military power to predominate in both .
The principle of economy of force must be applied with a
caveat when an enemy is equipped with WMD. The allied
commander must avoid having his main thrust trumped by the
employment of enemy mass destruction weapons . Therefore,
while resources must be focused on the decisive weak points in
adversary forces and plans, they must simultaneously be
adequately protected by maintaining intrawar escalation
dominance, and their employment prefaced by an air campaign
designed to substantially eliminate an enemy WDM capability .
The main ground thrust against enemy forces must be
adequately protected by concentrating active and passive
defense assets on behalf of the main effort. Dispersion and
continued mobility of key force elements, combined with rapid
supply and reinforcements from diverse logistics pathways, all
done with dispatch, air cover, and secure and clandestine
movements of troops, equipment, and supplies, will help
29
preserve the element of tactical surprise and disguise where

the main effort will be made.
As US Army and Air Force doctrine states, "economy of force
missions may require the forces employed to attack, to defend,
to delay, or to conduct deception operations ." 28
The Principle of Surprise in Warfare
US military doctrine teaches that commanders must

attempt to "strike the enemy in a time or place, or in a
manner, for which he is unprepared." 29 Surprise can affect the
outcome of battles, campaigns, or even entire wars . Surprise
can be achieved by speed of attack and maneuver, taking
unanticipated actions, using deception, varying the tactics
used from those previously employed, maintaining operations
security, gaining good intelligence and insights into enemy
thinking and doctrine, and applying new technologies in ways
that reduce enemy warning time, provide capabilities he does
not anticipate, or contribute to his confusion.
In the realm of new technologies to achieve surprise, note
the importance of stealth F-117 fighter-bombers in striking
key targets in the 1991 Gulf War and the use of precision-
guided cruise missiles with very small radar cross-sections .
One of the architects of the US air campaign in the 1991
Persian Gulf War has written that
for the first time in the history of warfare, a single entity can
produce its own mass and surprise . . . . Surprise has always
been one of the most important factors in war-perhaps even the
single most important because it could make up for the
deficiencies in numbers . Surprise was always difficult to achieve
because it conflicted with the concepts of mass and
concentration. In order to have enough forces available to hurl
enough projectiles to win the probability contest, the commander
had to assemble and move large numbers . Of course . assembling
and moving large forces in secret was quite difficult, even in the
days before aerial reconnaissance, so the odds of surprising the
enemy were small indeed. Stealth and precision have solved both
sides of the problem ; by definition, stealth achieves surprise, and
precision means that a single weapon accomplishes what
thousands were unlikely to accomplish in the past.3o
30
PRINCIPLES OF WAR
Until the NASTI regimes acquire radars or other sensors

capable of detecting and targeting incoming stealth aircraft and
cruise missiles, the United States and its allies have a means
of achieving tactical surprise in any air strike or any cruise
missile launch . The ability to strike "out of the blue" without
warning, provided by the B-2, F-117s, future F-22s, and
stealthy cruise missiles is limited only by how successfully US
and allied intelligence can identify and locate significant
enemy targets, and by the availability of stealth aircraft or
cruise missiles .
Technological surprise can also decide battles when one side
first employs a decisive new military technology which puts
the adversary at an unanticipated disadvantage. One of the
most dramatic illustrations of this was the decisive role of
British radars in helping the Royal Air Force win the Battle of
Britain against the German Luffwaffe . Although greatly
outnumbered in aircraft, the British were able to pinpoint the
directions and numbers of German aircraft as they took off in
France and flew across the English Channel toward Britain.
Armed with this knowledge, British Spitfires waited high in the
clouds in ambush and concentrated superior forces in the air
battles they chose to fight . The result was a British victory
where bean counters would have predicted defeat. Radar was
the biggest difference in the two sides.31
The Principle of Simplicity in Warfare
US Army commanders are taught to prepare "clear, uncom-

plicated plans and clear, concise orders to ensure thorough
understanding."32 Simplicity of operational concepts and goals
should reduce misunderstandings of orders, reduce confusion,
and enhance the understanding of key audiences whose
support is necessary to conduct the war.
This simplicity of operation should be applied to all phases
of combat; during the opening phase of operations, in the
main campaign, and in the war-termination phase. The war
plan should be a continuation of politics by other means,
keeping in mind the national ends for which the conflict was
begun, constantly relating national ends to ongoing military
31
means, and understanding the unique limits on war termination

imposed by the stark fact that the adversary possesses weapons
whose destructive magnitude exceeds anything previously
faced by other US commanders in previous conflicts .
Of course, simplicity and clarity of goals, plans, and orders
alone do not guarantee a correct strategy or successful operation
against a heavily armed regional enemy. A CINC could choose a
clear, simple plan based on tried-and-true principles, but find
that it would not work in a future MRC where the adversary
was equipped with radically different capabilities well beyond
those possessed by enemies in the past.
Armed with WMD, such adversaries might follow an
escalatory strategy that could shatter the cohesiveness of an
allied coalition, could scare off potential allies, might inflict a
political defeat on the coalition by dissolving allied domestic
support for the war, or even cripple an allied expeditionary
force by turning NBC and missile assets against allied
forces, ports, air bases, logistical tail, or allied capitals in the
region . In such a campaign, a NASTI attack might conceivably
inflict in a single day allied war deaths in excess of what the
United States suffered in Korea, Vietnam, or even in World
War 11.33
The right operational plan will be essential against NASTIs
on the field of battle . Clarity and simplicity added to a sound
approach contribute to success . Of course, if added to a
flawed concept of operations, clarity and simplicity cannot
avert defeat .
Additional Principles of War

against Enemies with W1VID
Military experience and recent technical innovations have

spawned some additional principles of warfare to add to the
list supplied by General Fuller in World War I . These new
operating principles, when combined with the original
MOSSCOMES principles of war may supply the decisive edge
against radical hostile regimes armed with WMD .
These new principles can be summarized by the acronym SLIP:
32
PRINCIPLES OF WAR
S - Simultaneity and Depth of Attack

L - Logistics
I - Information Dominance
P - Precision Targeting
Simultaneity and Depth of Attack

When battling a NAST[, it is best to strike fast and simul-
taneously at all key enemy assets to stun and paralyze his forces
to defeat them in the shortest time possible. Simultaneous
strikes throughout the entire battlespace may be enough to rob
him of much or all of his WMD capability, and reduce his
offensive potential .
As the US Army Training and Doctrine Command states in
its concept of operations for the early twenty-first century,
"The relationship between fire and maneuver may undergo a
transformation as armies with high technology place increasing
emphasis on simultaneous strikes throughout the battle space.
Maneuver forces may be massed for shorter periods of time . "34
Army doctrine also notes that "depth and simultaneous
attack may be a key characteristic of future American military
operations . These operations will redefine the current ideas of
deep, close, and rear."35 Indeed, such parallel war or hyperwar
strikes blur the distinction between the strategic, operational,
and tactical levels of operations and tend to blend them into one.
Recent effectiveness of simultaneous operations conducted
across the full length, breadth, and height of the battle space
have led to quick victories in Grenada, Panama, and the Gulf.
Desert Storm, for example, showed that "deep battle has
advanced beyond the concept of attacking the enemy's follow-on
forces in a sequential approach to shape the close battle to one
of simultaneous attack to stun, then rapidly defeat the enemy. "3s
Colonel John Warden III, one of the architects of the air
campaign that defeated Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War, suggests
that near-simultaneous parallel warfare strikes against key
enemy leadership, system essentials, infrastructure, population
centers, and fielded military forces may impose strategic or
operational paralysis on him, leading to his rapid defeat- 37
Warden notes the impact of the fast-paced US parallel air strikes
on the 1991 defeat of Iraq:
33
In Iraq, a country about the same size as prewar Germany, so

many key facilities suffered so much damage so quickly that it
was simply not possible to make strategically meaningful
repair . Nor was it possible or very useful to concentrate
defenses ; successful defense of one target merely meant that
one out of over a hundred didn't get hit at that particular time.
Like the thousand cuts analogy, it just doesn't matter very
much if some of the cuts are deflected . It is important to note
that Iraq was a very tough country strategically . Iraq had spent
an enormous amount of money and energy on giving itself lots
of protection and redundancy and its efforts would have paid
off well if it had been attacked serially as it had every right to
anticipate it would. In other words, the parallel attack against
Iraq was against what may well have been the country best
prepared in all the world for attack. If it worked there, it will
probably work elsewhere . 38
Thus, the experience of the 1991 Gulf War is that parallel

warfare can be decisive since regional adversaries are likely to
have a relatively small number of vital strategic targets,
estimated by Colonel Warden at "in the neighborhood of a few
hundred with the average of perhaps 10 aimpoints per vital
target."39 These enemy assets "tend to be small (in number), very
expensive, have few backups, and are hard to repair. If a
significant percentage of them are struck in parallel, the damage
becomes insuperable. "40
Of course, there may be countermeasures that an adversary
might take to offset the possibilities of simultaneous allied air
strikes across the battlespace of a major regional conflict. 41
Efforts might be taken to (1) disguise, diversify and
"demassify" the key political-military-economic assets to make
them less lucrative targets, (2) hide, harden, or put on mobile
launchers, WMD assets to reduce their vulnerability, (3)
employ AND against allied bases from which parallel attacks
are being launched, (4) attack allied C4I and employ various
forms of "info war" to confuse, disorganize, and mislead allied
commanders and "psychological warfare" to reduce allied
morale and influence the publics of the United States and its
allies to undermine political support for the war.
Logistics
When drafting the original list of principles of war, General
Fuller failed to identify the overwhelming importance of
34
PRINCIPLES OF WAR
effective logistics to the support of fighting forces as they

mobilize, deploy, maneuver, reconstitute, withdraw, and
demobilize . Without proper logistics it would be impossible to
man, arm, fuel, fix, move, or sustain the soldier, sailor, or
airman and their equipment as they enter and fight major
regional conflicts . As one US Army general has put it, "Forget
logistics and you lose."42 On more than 230 occasions, US forces
have been sent to other countries and regions of the world in the
twentieth century alone . Logistics gets them there, sustains
them, and gets them home again .
Increasingly, logistics will play an important part in whether
US and allied forces get to the battle in time and whether they
will predominate when they arrive . This is especially true now
that fewer US troops are stationed abroad while still responsible
for standing ready to win two near-simultaneous major regional
conflicts (MRCs) and participating in a number of military
operations other than war (MOOTW as well .
MRCs and MOOTWs both require a force-projection logistical
system that has "the demonstrated ability to rapidly alert,
mobilize, deploy and operate anywhere in the world. "43 As a
recent analysis of the US Army in the Gulf War notes, logistics
units do more than sustain forces in the field. Indeed, "the
strength of the logistics engine determines the pace at which an
intervening force makes itself secure ." 44
One student of that conflict has observed :
The Iraqi Army stood by and watched on television as the
American Army assembled a sophisticated combat force in front
of them with efficiency and dispatch. The act of building the
logistics infrastructure during Desert Shield created an
atmosphere of domination and a sense of inevitable defeat among
the Iraqis long before the shooting war began. In the new style of
war, superior logistics becomes the engine that allows American
military forces to reach an enemy from all points of the globe and
arrive ready to fight. Speed of closure and buildup naturally
increases the psychological stature of the deploying force and
reduces the risk of destruction to those forces that deploy first. In
contrast, dribbling forces into a theater by air or sea raises the
risk of defeat in detail .45
A successful buildup of US and allied forces and supplies at

the inception of a major regional conflict could, in turn,
depend upon the early deployment of an effective multilayered
35
air and missile defense and air superiority over the battle zone .
As Col Warden has warned, surface forces and logistical
support units are fragile at the operational level of war,
especially against highly armed challengers .
Supporting significant numbers of surface forces (air, land, or
sea) is a tough administrative problem even in peacetime.
Success depends upon efficient distribution of information, fuel,
food, and ammunition . By necessity, efficient distribution
depends on an inverted pyramid of distribution . Supplies of all
operational commodities must be accumulated in one or two
locations, then parsed out to two or four locations, and so on
until they eventually reach the user. The nodes in the system are
exceptionally vulnerable to precision attack. 4s
In short, while the United States and its allies may be able
to handle a NASTI regime such as Iraq in 1991, in the future it
may be dealing with adversaries that have mastered the
building of accurate ballistic missiles, nuclear warheads,
chemically armed reentry vehicles, and relatively cheap,
hard-to-detect cruise missiles. At that point, MRC forces and
their logistics tails had better reduce their vulnerabilities by
application of deterrence, preemptive strikes, defenses,
deployment outside of enemy range, dispersion of units,
constant mobility, or diversity of supply paths in order to avoid
defeat.
Information Dominance
The importance of winning the information war should be a
guiding principle of wars of the future. A US Army study predicts
that "effective information operations will make battlespace
transparent to us and opaque to our opponents . 47 Such, at
least, is the goal.
One of the air commanders of the Gulf War also emphasizes
the importance of information at the strategic and operational
levels . He notes that
In the Gulf War, the coalition deprived Iraq of most of its ability to
gather and use information . At the same time, the coalition
managed its own information requirements acceptably, even
though it was organized in the same way Frederick the Great had
organized himself. Clear for the future is the requirement to
redesign our organizations so they are built to exploit modern
information-handling equipment . This also means flattening
36
PRINCIPLES OF WAR
organizations, eliminating most middle management, pushing

decision making to very low levels, and forming worldwide neural
networks to capitalize on the ability of units in and out of the
direct conflict area. 48
The information lesson from the Gulf was negative ; the coalition
succeeded in breaking Iraq's ability to process information, but
the coalition failed to fill the void by providing Iraqis with an
alternative source of information . Failure to do so made
Saddam's job much easier and greatly reduced the chance of his
overthrow . Capturing and exploiting the datasphere may well be
the most important effort in many future wars . 49
Precision Targeting
Another principle of war flowing from technical innovations

is the dominance imparted by using precision guided weapons .
Suddenly, with great precision, nearly all important fixed
targets can be destroyed in a campaign. Instead of having to
fire thousands of bombs and missiles at targets, just a few will
do the job today with much greater certainty than the
imprecise massed attacks of yesterday.
Now "one bomb, one target destroyed" is more the norm
instead of "hundreds of bombs, perhaps few or no targets
destroyed." This helps in planning a successful campaign
and in executing it. MRC logistics are simplified since a
finite number of precision weapons can now be used to
destroy a set of targets rather than the massive quantities of
"dumb" weapons that would otherwise be needed to
accomplish the same mission.
The combined advantages of stealth technology and
precision guided missiles can be seen by comparing a
conventional bombing attack in the 1991 Gulf War, against the
same target, the Baghdad Nuclear Research Center, with a
stealthy precision attack two days later. The conventional air
attack failed to destroy the target even though it used 32
bomb-dropping aircraft, 16 fighter escorts, 12 aircraft for
suppression of Iraqi air defenses, and 15 tanker aircraft. Two
days later, this target was successfully destroyed using just
eight F-117 stealth fighter-bombers supported by just two
tankers .5 o
37
Conclusions
There are many other principles of war that might be

formulated to apply to different kinds of engagements. For
example, war against a NASTI is far different from
participating in military operations other than war such as UN
peace operations . Further, low-intensity counterguerrilla
warfare is prosecuted differently than more conventional
battle, as fought in the 1991 Gulf War, and both might be
fought differently in future wars .
One scholar has listed over one hundred principles of war
that have been advocated by military thinkers since the time of
Sun Tzu.5 I Indeed, in 1984 US Air Force doctrine recommended
four guidelines (timing, tempo, logistics, and cohesion) in
addition to Fuller's original list of nine principles of war. Some
in the recent past have argued for the inclusion of the concept
of deterrence as a separate principle of conflict management . 52
A review of the principles of war that pertain to a future
conflict with an enemy equipped with advanced conventional
arms and mass destruction weapons can provide a better
understanding of how to operate on the future battlefield .
However, such a set of principles are not infallible guides to
action . They cannot substitute for judgment, improvisation,
insights into the enemy, or initiative . Nor can they be applied
by rote or as part of a checklist.
Understanding of these principles can add to the commander's
understanding of how to conduct warfare, and a review of
them can remind him of fundamentals to observe, but such
application of these principles by themselves is not sufficient
for victory . For one thing they are somewhat abstract and
require judgment in application to specific cases.
In the end, the commander and his subordinates still must
bring a depth of experience, concrete mastery of details, and
an understanding of military affairs that reaches well beyond
such general principles. Nevertheless, - these principles of war
can be useful ways to think about how to solve the problem
facing a commander whose force is opposed by a NASTI .
38
PRINCIPLES OF WAR
Notes
1 . Rogue states whose military forces are equipped with WMD and
means of delivering them on targets may interfere with highly sophisticated
new strategies and technologies developed by the United States and its
allies . WMD may level the playing field . For example, a high-altitude nuclear
EMP burst may destroy allied communications, interfere with space-based
reconnaissance, impede the digitalization of the battlefield, blind allied
precision strike forces to new targets, and serve as a form of information
warfare in its crudest form. The RMA brought about by the introduction of
NBC and missile systems into a theater of war may predominate over the
effects of other strategies and technologies . For a different view see the
chapter on "The Revolution in Military Affairs" by Jeffrey McKittrick, James
Blackwell, Fred Littlepage, George Kraus, Richard Blanchfield, and Dale Hill
in this volume .
2 . J. F. C. Fuller, "The Principles of War, with Reference to the
Campaigns of 1914-1915," Journal of the Royal United Service Institution,
vol. 61, February 1916. Fuller cited seven principles of war: Objective,
Offensive, Mass, Economy of Force, Surprise, Security, Cooperation . Later,
the US military dropped Cooperation as a principle of war and substituted
Simplicity and Command Unity.
3. See Air Force Manual (AFM) 1-1, Basic Aerospace Doctrine of the
United States Air Force, March 1992, vol . 1, 1 and 2, Essay B, "Principles of
War," 9-15 . See also, Appendix A, "Principles of War," Army Field Manual
(FM) 100-5, Operations, 1990 edition, 173-77 .
4. Ibid., 174 . The principle of mass can also be applied at the grand
strategic level. "In the strategic context, this principle suggests that the
nation should commit, or be prepared to commit, a preponderance of
national power to those regions or areas of the world where the threat to
national security interests is greatest." See also AFM 1-1, 1 .
5 . The advantages of achieving local superiority, even if outnumbered
overall, is not a new idea. The same point was made several thousand years
ago by Sun Tzu. See Sun Tzu, The Art of War, trans . Samuel B. Griffith
(London : Oxford University Press, 1963), 98.
6. The Manhattan Project provided a fission weapon in 1945 that was
over a thousand times more powerful per unit weight than a TNT warhead of
equivalent weight . The H-bomb fusion weapons that followed carried an
explosive yield a thousand times more powerful than the earlier A-bombs .
This millionfold increase in explosive capability between 1945 and 1950 was
augmented by the first-time capability to deliver such weapons across
intercontinental distances by aircraft and missiles. Massed local forces were
now targetable by WMD delivered across intercontinental ranges .
7. Gen Gordon R. Sullivan and Col James M. Dubik, USA, "Land
Warfare in the 21st Century," Military Review, September 1993, 22. Their
chart on "The Expanded Battlefield" traces the density of troop deployment,
width of the battlefront, and depth of the battle space in wars from antiquity
to the 1991 Gulf War. The earlier work done on wars of antiquity,
Napoleonic wars, the American civil war, World War I, World War II, and the
39
October War was found in Col T. N. Dupuy, The Evolution of Weapons and
Warfare (Fairfax, Virginia : Hero Books, 1980) .
8. Michael Mazaar, "The Revolution in Military Affairs : A Framework for
Defense Planning," Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College,
Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, June 10, 1994, 20.
9. Lt Col Edward Mann, USAF, "One Target, One Bomb: Is the Principle
of Mass Dead?" Military Review, September 1993, 33-41 .
10. Ibid., 16.
11 . Ibid., 18 .
12 . Ibid., 21 . Indeed, Mazaar notes, more broadly, that "developments in
warfare are reducing the role of major platforms-heavy ground vehicles, large
capital ships, and advanced aircraft." See also Adm. David E. Jeremiah, "What's
Ahead for the Armed Forces," Joint Force Quarterly, no. 1 (Summer 1993) ; 32.
13 . Mann, 37.
14. Army, FM 100-5, Appendix A, 1990, 173 .
15 . Army Chemical School, "Summary Evaluation : Report for Combined
Arms in a Nuclear/Chemical Environment (CANE) Force Development Test
and Experimentation, Phase 1, March 1986. This source was cited in an
article by Maj Gen Robert D. Orton, USA, and Maj Robert C. Neumann, USA,
"The Impact of Weapons of Mass Destruction on Battlefield Operations,"
Military Review, December 1993, 66.
16. Ibid ., 68 .
17. Ibid., 68-71 .
18. US Army, Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), "Force XXI
Operations : A Concept for the Evolution of Full-Dimension Operations for
the Strategic Army of the Early 'twenty-First Century," TRADOC Pamphlet
525-5, August 1994, 3-21 .
19 . AFM 1-1, vol . 1 .
20. Ibid., 5.
21 . It would be inadvisable in almost all contingencies to use US nuclear
weapons in counterforce strikes against enemy weapons of mass
destruction . For a number of reasons, the preferred instrument for
disarming the adversary very likely should be advanced conventional
weapons . The worldwide reaction to the United States using nuclear
weapons on a regional enemy, particularly if used first, would be negative in
the extreme and could unhinge all other US diplomatic and multilateral
efforts to counter the spread of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons in
other regions of the world. For one thing, nuclear strikes against a state that
had signed the NPT are illegal under the treaty, so such an action would be
a flagrant violation of international law . Indeed, any state that violates this
code would be taking a course diametrically opposed to UN Security Council
pledges to punish such violators . Indeed this has historically been a US
position at the United Nations to punish nuclear first use against NPT
members . Further, US nuclear first use in a regional war, even against a
NASTI, would undoubtedly arouse world opinion against US policy, making
the United States a pariah state in many more quarters. It would not be
unexpected to see Americans and US property assaulted all around the
globe in retaliation . Moreover, US nuclear first use, even against a NASTI,
would shatter the nonnuclear international taboo that the United States has
40
PRINCIPLES OF WAR
attempted to foster with treaties and diplomacy for decades . Finally, such a
policy of nuclear first use could also cause a collapse of US domestic
support for the regional war effort that would probably rival or exceed the
antiwar activities inside the United States during the Vietnam War period.
22. "Force XXI Operations," 2-8 .
23. During the cold war, one fear of US strategists was the nuclear
decapitation strike from the Soviet Union, perhaps by an off-shore
sea-launched ballistic or cruise missile . See Barry R Schneider, "Invitation to a
Nuclear Beheading," Across The Board, 20, no. 7 (July/August 1983) : 9-16.
24. If the first engagement is decisive enough, the conflict may be over
almost before it has begun. This was true, for example, of the United
States's intervention against the Noriega regime in Panama .
25. Caspar W. Weinberger, "The Uses of Military Power," text of remarks
by the secretary of defense to the National Press Club, November 28, 1984.
This is included in the appendix to Weinberger's book, Fighting for Peace:
Seven Critical Years in the Pentagon (New York: Warner Books, 1990) 441 .
26. FM 100-5, "Appendix A: Principles of War," 176. For a similar
commentary, see the June 1993 edition of FM 100-5, 2-4 to 2-6 .
27. Ibid., 174-75 .
28. Ibid., 175 .
29. Ibid., 176.
30. John A. Warden III, "Air Power for the Twenty-First Century," in Karl
P. Magyar, Editor in Chief, Challenge and Response: Anticipating US Military
Security Concerns (Maxwell AFB, Alabama : Air University Press, August
1994) 328-29 .
31 . See Chester Wilmot, "David and Goliath," chapter 2, The Struggle for
Europe (New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1952,) 33-55 . Not realizing the
potency and importance of British radar stations, the German high
command mistakenly abandoned their early bombardment of them in the
Battle of Britain because they believed that the British would be able to
repair them and put them back into operation very quickly . Had the
Germans persisted, they may have won the air battle over England.
32 . FM 100-5, 177.
33 . In Korea, the United States was reported to have lost 35,000 troops
killed in combat; in Vietnam the number was 53,000 ; and in World War II,
330,000 .
35. Ibid., 3-11 .
36. Ibid., 2-9 .
37. Warden, 311-32 .
38. Ibid ., 325.
39. Ibid., 327.
40. Ibid.
41 . Col Richard Szafranski, USAF, "Parallel War and Hyperwar : Is Every
Want a Weakness?" See elsewhere in this volume .
42. Gen Frederick M. Franks, Jr., as quoted in Col Michael S. Williams
and Lt Col Herman T. Palmer, USA, "Force-Projection Logistics," Military
Review, June 1994, 29.
43. FM 100-5, June 1993, 3-6 .
41
44. Gen Robert H. Scales, USA, Certain Victory : The U.S. Army in the Gulf
War (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas : US Army Command and General Staff
College Press, 1994), 378 .
45. Ibid., 376 .
46. Warden, 328 .
48. Warden, 329-30 .
49. Ibid.
50. Mann, 38.
51 . John I. Alger, The Quest for Victory : The History of the Principles of
War (Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 1982) . Alger drew on the military
writings of thinkers such as Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, Jomini, Mahan,
Rocquancourt, Steele, MacDougall, Liddell Hart, Mao Tse-tung,
Montgomery, as well as the British army, French army, German army, and
US Army and Air Force in compiling his list of principles of war. These
guidelines included, for example, diverse maxims on the need for
cooperation, shock, favorable ground cover, vitality, fire superiority,
flexibility, an indirect approach, simultaneity, reconnaissance, local
superiority, air superiority, a will to win, readiness, pursuit, God's blessing,
and the moral high ground.
52. For a summary discussion see AFM 1-1, vol . 2, Essay B : "Principles
of War." 14. The original sources are Col Robert H. Reed et al., "On
Deterrence: A Broadened Perspective," Air University Review, May--June
1975, 2-17, and John M. Collins, "Principles of Deterrence," Air University
Review, November-December 1979, 17-26.
Overview: New Era Warfare? A
Revolution in Military Affairs?
Are we currently living through a "revolution in military

affairs?" Several of our authors in this book argue that this is
the case. What is a revolution in military affairs (RMA)? For
our purposes, an RMA is defined as a fundamental change, or
discontinuity, in the way military strategy and operations have
been planned and conducted .
Sometimes an RMA is driven by technological innovation, such
as the introduction of nuclear weapons at the end of World War
II . Sometimes operational innovations change warfare-for
example, the German blitzkrieg . Societal changes such as
Napoleon's Levee en Masse also can contribute to RMAs . At
other times, an RMA may be created by a combination of develop-
ments-indeed, the reinforcement and integration of military
operational, technical, and even socio-economic developments .
The essay by Jeffrey McKitrick, James Blackwell, Fred
Littlepage, George Kraus, Richard Blanchfield and Dale Hill,
analysts at the Science Applications International Corporation
(SAIC), argues that we have been in the midst of an integrated
RMA since the start of the Gulf War and that it is accelerating .
The SAIC analysts contend that the current RMA is
characterized by an integration of operational, organization,
and technical capabilities across all operating mediums-air,
land, and sea. Furthermore, they argue that "new warfare areas,"
such as long-range precision strikes, information warfare,
dominating maneuver, and space warfare, are also emerging.
Regarding deep precision strike, there have been dramatic
increases in the ability to strike strategic targets . "In 1943,"
writes the SAIC team, "the US 8th Air Force prosecuted only 50
strategic targets during the course of the entire year. In the first
24 hours of Desert Storm, the combined [coalition] air forces
prosecuted 150 strategic targets-a thousand-fold increase over
1943 capabilities ." In 25 more years, it may be possible to strike
as many as 500 to 1000 targets in the first few minutes of a
campaign, inflicting strategic paralysis on the enemy.
Information warfare constitutes another revolutionary
aspect of the new era warfare-quickly disrupting or destroying
43
an adversary's command and control system, intelligence,

information propaganda abilities, and general situational
awareness .
"Dominating maneuver" refers to the positioning and
employment of forces anywhere in a theater so that, in
combination with precision strike and information warfare, an
adversary's center of gravity can be destroyed .
Space warfare involves dominating the "high ground" of
space to deny its advantages to the adversary and to use it to
implement one's own command, control, communications,
navigation, reconnaissance, air defense, missile defense,
warning, and weather forecasting . Space assets can become a
key to the future digitalization of the battlefield where some of
the fog and friction of war is removed for the side dominating
space . Space warfare includes aspects of the other three
emerging warfare areas, but has the potential to become a
distinct warfare area of its own. The SAIC analysts conclude
that truly revolutionary effects in warfare will occur when two
or more of the new warfare areas combine. The effect may be
to so dominate an adversary before conflict starts as to make
the conflict unnecessary, something Sun Tzu advocated nearly
2,500 years ago.
Gen Charles Homer also believes we have entered a period
where new technologies can change the manner in which we
fight wars and can downgrade the value of possession of
nuclear arms. This officer, who led the US and allied air
operations in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, writes that
Desert Storm represents a revolution in warfare. Specifically, we will need
to conduct operations in ways that inflict the minimum number of
casualties on both sides . Additionally, we must prepare for wars in which
ballistic missiles are used against our own troops and as terror
weapons . . . . In the end, we should aim to reduce our nuclear arsenals to
zero as we substitute missile defenses for nuclear weapons.
Homer's essay concentrates on the need for effective theater

missile defenses (TMD) and strong strategic ballistic missile
defenses (BMD) . The author notes how ballistic missiles and
their technology are proliferating across the third world, and
have fallen into the hands of rogue states .
Homer argues that multilayered ballistic missile defenses
will work better than single terminal-phase systems such as
44
NEW ERA WARFARE?
Patriot, which was the only TMD system available in the Gulf
War. Multilayered defenses are designed to intercept ballistic
missile attacks all along their flight trajectories. For example,
such defenses will interdict the attack at several key points:
" Boost phase and post-boost phase intercepts-the best
time to hit a missile because "it's signature is high, it's at
its slowest speed, it's vulnerable, and if you get it then, it
falls on the enemy." Furthermore, a single intercept of a
MIRVed system kills all the weapons with a single shot,
before the reentry vehicles carrying the warheads can
separate and are en route to individual targets.
" Midcourse interceptalso desirable because one can
shoot at the missile in a space environment that interferes
less with high-energy defensive weapons, and can target
the reentry vehicles that escaped the boost-phase defenses.
" Terminal-phase intercept-more dangerous, because
the debris can fall on the defender. This last line of
defense has less time to react to the incoming reentry
vehicles and is presently restricted to kinetic kill or
explosive techniques for intercepts since the earth's
atmosphere interferes with laser and particle beam
projection . However, if the first two layers of defense do
their job well, the attack will be greatly diluted and will
present fewer targets for ground-based BMD interceptors .
A two-layered theater missile defense system is currently
planned by the United States for future major regional
conflicts (MRCs), perhaps the Theater High-Altitude Area
Defense (THAAD) system in combination with an improved
Patriot terminal defensive system, to help protect US and
allied forces in future MRCs.
General Homer advocates a strong, fielded ballistic missile
defense system for the United States, our allies, and Russia,
which is surrounded by would-be proliferators . However
contends that the United States could begin more extensive
cooperation with the Russians by sharing information on
warning systems, and, as we build trust, might cooperate in
constructing shared missile defenses. This controversial view of
one of the nation's foremost military leaders has attracted much
debate .
45
Chapter 2
New-Era Warfare
Gen Charles A. Homer, USAF (Ret .)
In the twenty-first century we are going to confront

increasingly the threat of ballistic missiles and the need for
ballistic-missile defenses .
The threats posed by ballistic missiles are obvious . Many
nations now have them, and not all those nations are high-
tech. There is also no doubt about the fact that the capabilities
of ballistic missiles are increasing. Former CIA Director
Woolsey, for example, noted that North Korea has developed
three new ballistic missiles.
But our real problem is not so much the threat itself, but a
lack of understanding about what is the threat. The military
missed the whole point in Desert Storm. We used to look upon
ballistic missiles in terms of warhead size and accuracy-
circular error probability and the like-and calculate the
warhead's impact on the enemy, but we missed the real
impact of the ballistic missile.
Part of the reason for this misunderstanding is simply our
heritage. All of us here today have lived the majority of our
adult lives during the cold war, which caused us to look at
things in strategic terms ; that is, in the context of US/Soviet
relations . We still argue, for example, about the futility of
having ballistic missile defenses because it's bad to defend
against mutual assured destruction . But many of our views on
ballistic missiles, couched in the obsolete terms of the cold
war bipolar world, are not appreciated by much of the world
today. That is particularly true of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and
Israel .
Edited remarks originally delivered by Gen Charles A. Homer on 19 July 1994 at the
Washington Roundtable on Science and Public Policy, sponsored by The Marshall
Institute. His speech is reprinted here with the permission of the George C. Marshall
Institute, Washington, D .C .
47
There is also a history we can refer to regarding the use of

ballistic missiles, and I was puzzled during Desert Storm that
we didn't seem to be aware of that history. Ballistic missiles
were used against Rotterdam and London in World War II .
After the Gulf War, I was watching a story about our stealth
fighter, the F-117. The person largely responsible for the
stealth technology on the F-117 is an Englishman who had
grown up in London during WWII . He said, "I recall the
terrorizing impact of the V-2 attacks. They were far more
fearsome than bomber attacks ." So the lesson was there that
ballistic missiles can have a large psychological impact as well
as a military impact on a war, but we had failed to learn that
lesson .
The ballistic missile had a profound impact on the coalition
nations in Desert Storm, on our forces, and on our
understanding of the ballistic missile's own utility. The
ballistic missile was the only advantage that Saddam Hussein
had in that war. That's the lesson that Saddam taught us, that
ballistic missiles may have little military value but do have
great terror potential.
Ballistic missiles and ballistic-missile defense carry heavy
political implications . For example, if we have no money to
spend on conventional defense, we tell our people that it
doesn't matter, because we have ballistic missiles, and that
since defenses against missiles are destabilizing, it is not even
in our best interests to spend money on a defense against them.
But in reality ballistic missiles are with us, and the
capability for launching them is growing . Technology
transfers, a technology revolution occurring every 18 months
to two years, as well as legitimate space launches, are things
we need to be concerned about in this regard. In today's world
there is no reason why any nation can't put a communications
satellite into space . That same capability for launching
satellites can be transformed, with proper guidance, into a
ballistic missile of intercontinental range. Other technologies
enhance this delivery capability, such as our Global
Positioning System (GPS), which gives nations the ability to
target with some degree of accuracy without having to go
through the same costly and intense development that we had
to go through to get that system operational . There are also
48
NEW-ERA WARFARE
many nations that are willing to use ballistic missiles . Iraq,

Yemen, and Afghanistan are all examples . We've seen testing
on the part of Vietnam, Korea, and Syria, and they are seen as
necessary for defense by countries such as Saudi Arabia and
Israel . Certainly, there are opportunities we can foresee for
countries such as Libya and North Korea to use ballistic
missiles; and they are the cornerstone of defense for the
United States and Russia, and also for countries such as India
and Pakistan.
The world has changed, and the capability exists for many
countries to use ballistic missiles . If you put these facts
together with other big shifts, such as the decline in nation-
state status, and new stresses such as international migration
and environmental degradation, we must understand that the
world is changing . Certainly there are new strategies being
pursued . There is no doubt, for example, that many states are
pursuing a strategy of acquiring weapons of mass destruction
and the means to deliver them. This is the war that is
replacing the cold war.
Lessons of Desert Storm

So let me turn to Desert Storm because it illustrated this
revolution in warfare . First, look at this example. At a Camp
David meeting in September 1990, before the Gulf War began,
President Bush asked : "How do we avoid casualties?" At first, I
thought he was referring to US casualties, and then I thought
he meant casualties of all the possible allies, but as he
continued to speak I realized he was talking about the Iraqis.
He was asking how we could conduct this military operation
with minimum casualties on both sides . That is part of
new-era warfare .
There's no doubt that casualties in modern warfare-at least
from our point of view-are quite unacceptable . If the casualty
count is too high, you can win the war on the battlefield yet
lose it at home because you inflicted large numbers of
casualties on the enemy or if they inflicted large numbers of
casualties on you. Both are unpopular with the US public.
49
BATTLEFIELD OF THE FUTURE.
How did we carry out ballistic missile defense (BMD) in

Desert Storm? The answer is, we were ill-prepared, though
we did prepare to some extent. In 1988 in an exercise under
Gen George Crist (commander-in-chief of Central Command),
Army Brig Gen Jim Ellis was given free play as a Red Force
commander. He was supposed to challenge us . The scenario
was that the Russians attacked through Iran and we had to
defend . What Jim Ellis did was to keep firing ballistic
missiles into my area . Every time I'd mass my force, he
would send a couple of ballistic missiles at us . It's a war
game, but I'll tell you, pretty soon you get a little tired
because you want to be a hero in front of your boss, and this
brigadier general was not cooperating at all . But he did us a
great service by making us aware of the military utility of
these weapons .
In another exercise in July, 1990, the scenario was that
Country Orange was going to attack Kuwait and Saudi Arabia
from the north, and we knew Country Orange probably had
ballistic missiles . I said, "We're not going to be unprepared
again." So I went down to see Lt Gen John Yeosock, commander,
Third US Army, who was the ground force commander, and I
told him that I wanted to use the Patriots to defend against
ballistic missiles .
At that time, Patriot was believed to have the capability to
intercept ballistic missiles, so I took the Patriot air defense
circle and put it on my maps . When we plotted those circles,
they just about covered the map. Of course, we learned in
Saudi Arabia that the Patriot ballistic missile defense circle
looks more like the head of a pin .
We have all heard a lot of very smart people talk about
whether the Patriot missiles were or were not a success in Desert
Storm. I can only tell you that I had to make a decision about
whether or not to move the E-3 AWACS (Airborne Warning and
Control System) aircraft out of Scud range. They were positioned
at Riyadh Air Base and Saddam was shooting Scuds at them. I
had to decide whether to leave them there or move them to
Thumrait, which would have put another hour or
hour-and-a-half between them and their operational area. I
decided to leave them at Riyadh and, because of the Patriot
missiles, we didn't lose a single AWACS. That was either a
50
NEW-ERA WARFARE
brilliant decision or a very lucky one, I don't know. But I do

know that from where I stood, the Patriots worked .
After the initial Scud launchings, we saw the value of the
Patriots and of defense against ballistic missiles in general .
There can be no doubt about the value of these antiweapon
interceptors. Consider that the greatest number of casualties
came from one Scud attack on the Dhahran barracks .
This could prove to be a lesson not lost on other nations in
terms of the terror caused by ballistic missiles and the political
leverage they provide . Suppose Iran, for example, had nuclear
weapons and ballistic missiles, and suppose they decided that
they wanted to raise the price of oil, and they tell their
neighbors that they are going to deny them and every other
nation access to the Red Sea. They say to the Saudis, "You
know we have these weapons, but we're not interested in
occupying your country, nor are we interested in crossing into
it; we just want to get the price of oil back to where we can
make some money." What would be the reaction of the Saudis?
And finally, it's reasonable to believe that the development
and proliferation of ballistic missiles in the hands of potential
adversaries has reached a stage where they can affect such
things as the building and maintaining of coalitions . For
example, what if we were involved in a situation like Desert
Storm, where an ally like Italy, for example, was threatened
with such a missile attack? Would other neighboring
countries, also within range, dare to ally themselves with Italy
or the United States? How difficult would it be to hold together
a coalition as diverse as the one we had in Desert Storm if the
member nations were threatened with direct missile attack?
Status of Ballistic Missile Defense Programs
Where are we today with respect to ballistic missile defense?

We have the defense guidance on theater, national, and
technology demonstrations, and we have the ABM Treaty,
which is the most significant element at the policy level. The
ABM Treaty made sense in a cold war context, but you wonder
if it has merit in the new world . So far as our current
capability is concerned, warning of long-range missiles is
51
provided by space-based infrared sensors and radars. But we

should keep in mind that our radars are configured for the
cold war. Although we can change that fact, as of now our
infrared systems for theater defense have limited detection
capability . They have difficulty with land masses far away from
the equator, with weather, and with the smaller infrared
signature of missiles like the Scud. The biggest problem with
our current radars and space-based sensors, however, is that
they do not allow us to target and attack mobile launchers.
That was one lesson I brought back from Desert Storm, and it
is the one I keep hitting over and over and over.
We have made some progress since then. We have modified
the software associated with the Defense Support Program
(DSP) signal . We can take two or more satellites and
interweave their coverage to improve accuracy and the
likelihood of detection. But they still do not offer the degree of
certainty that I think is needed and wanted . Other countries
have offered us the use of their some of their warning assets .
For example, the head of the Ukrainian Air Forces asked me,
"How would you like to have some of our ballistic-missile radar
gear, left over from the cold war?" But we looked at its location
and decided we were not interested because it really had no
potential military benefit. Of course, the Ukrainians are trying
to get close to the United States to preclude being overpowered
by the Russians .
Among those most interested in our ballistic missile warning
capabilities, and how they can be shared, are our allies. The
long-term program that I think would be most effective in this
respect is called ALARM. It gives us the ability to see lower
signature missiles and it gives us the ability to see missiles
that are coasting, for example. Finally, ALARM gives us
responsiveness, in that it will be on a smaller launch vehicle
and maybe on other satellites .
We need to be concerned about keeping our warning
capabilities effective . For example, a DSP satellite went bad
last year, so I said launch the spares. I thought it might take
90 days to do this. It turns out that it takes considerably longer.
In some cases, it can take up to two years to replace a warning
satellite .
52
NEW-ERA WARFARE
The United States can count on our offensive missiles, but

we have to think in depth. Too often the nature of our acquisition
system forces us into being too programming oriented. We
must think not in terms of the single solution but in a variety
of solutions . For instance, we wanted to attack Iraq's missiles
where they were built, before they were on the launch pads.
That would have been the most productive approach . We have
the capability to do that, but we did not do a very good job at
finding and destroying Iraq's missiles in Desert Storm because
we really had not thought sufficiently about the problems
beforehand.
After the war, I asked several questions about the command
and control of Iraq's systems, and we found out that we could
have done some things to improve our missile defense
efficiency . For example, launch orders in Iraq tended to come
from a very high level, so there were vulnerabilities that could
have been exploited .
In general, we need to consider the three areas of missile
defense : boost-phase, midcourse and terminal. We have other
capabilities, such as JOINT STARS, GPS, and multitarget
detection, but I think most of us want to talk about what
happens after missiles are launched .
Boost-Phase Intercept
During the Gulf War, we had the potential for an intercept of

a Scud just after launch . An F-16 was over Iraq suppressing
Scuds, and the pilot saw a missile coming off the pad. He
thought it was a SAM being shot at him, so he made a move
away from it. He then realized that there was no radar warning
and that the missile was very bright and large for a SAM .
When he realized it was a Scud, not a SAM, he attempted to
shoot it down with an AIM-9 heat-seeking missile. But the
high rate of acceleration of the Scud was too much for the
F-16 .
Boost-phase is a good time to intercept a missile because its
signature is high, it's at its slowest speed, it's vulnerable, and
if you get it then, it falls on the enemy-a beautiful thing. The
problem is having the time to detect and launch on it. The
timeline on a boost-phase intercept is very, very tight.
53
Still, there are many options for boost-phase defense. You

can get airplanes to cap an attack, as we did during the Gulf
War. You can have protection from large airplanes if you want
to use an airborne laser, for example. There are also options
for putting unmanned airplanes up for long periods of time .
We need to work on the boost-phase intercept issue, but
right now it has been hampered . We have three boost-phase
programs that I know of, all on airplanes: HARM, AMRAAM,
and the airborne laser. But I think that the current budget
crisis will probably keep these programs from being acquired
and deployed . That we have been taking funds from these
programs tells us more about our own lack of perception of the
seriousness of the threat than it does about the threat itself.
Midcourse Intercept
The advantage of a midcourse intercept is that during this

period the missile has a good signature because it's out there in
a sterile, space environment and you have multiple opportunities
to shoot at it . Also, if you go to space-based systems for intercept
in mid-course, you get wide-area protection ; you can cover larger
portions of the landmass depending on how many of these
interceptor platforms and sensor satellites you want to put in
orbit . Of course, the big down-draw on anything in space is the
ABM Treaty, and the widely held attitude that we should not
have weapons in space.
My answer to that is that the weapon in space is the
warhead on a missile . The interceptor is an antiweapon .
Therefore I don't have the same philosophical problems .
Parenthetically, I'm not in favor of weapons in space .
There are still other options for midcourse defense against
ballistic missiles. The Navy Upper Tier is one, because it gives
you a great deal of flexibility. You can park these ships
anywhere. If we deployed this system you could have a
national missile defense by stationing them as far away as
Hudson Bay . But again, midcourse intercept requires
midcourse guidance, and that involves sensors in space which
track cold bodies and relay that data to the intercept missile,
and that is prohibited by the ABM Treaty.
54
NEW-ERA WARFARE
Terminal-phase Intercept
Finally, we have terminal defense, where most of our work is

now done . The most logical elements would be development of
an improved Patriot ; Theater High Altitude Area Defense
(THAAD), a ground-based system by the Army ; and/or Navy
Lower Tier.
However, I worry about this. Will these ground-based
systems address the future threat? Too often, when people
approve building a theater missile defense, they are talking
about building a missile defense against a benign nonthreat, a
Scud-like threat. Remember, the Scud wasn't even good
enough for Saddam . Even if we deploy one of these systems-
such as THAADwe still need a cold-body tracker in space . If
I'm sitting here with my THAAD missile and somebody
launches a ballistic missile at me, I still need very definite data
as to where that missile is so that I can launch my THAAD
before knowing where it's aimed . So warning is not enough-
we need to have accurate information about where the missile
is . A cold-body tracker doubles the range of your ground-
based or ship-based systems . But again, to deploy that tracker
requires ABM Treaty changes.
Need for a Robust TMD
The technology for building effective ballistic missile

defenses is available today. The dollars have been spent, and
countries are clamoring for ballistic missile defenses. I believe
that we must be concerned about what kind of ballistic-missile
defenses we're allowed to build . Those concerns have to be
voiced, or else we will wind up with a noneffective system
against fair-to-reasonable threats . If space systems can give us
the capability we need to defend our men and women when
they are overseas, let alone defend the United States, then we
need to seek that. If that means we need to work with the
Russians to change the ABM Treaty, that's what we need to
do .
Let's talk about the ABM Treaty. I believe the ABM Treaty is
a cold war hang-over . is the cold war over? If you look at the
55
defense budget, the cold war is over. What's more, I've had
visits from the head of the KGB, and Col General Ivanov, head
of Russia's rocket forces . We're talking with them about
shared exercises ; I've been invited to Moscow. Given all this, I
think it's reasonable to assume that the cold war is over-
and, therefore, I think the ABM Treaty has outlived its
usefulness.
That does not mean that we and the Russians are not going
to have tensions, conflict, disagreements, and competition .
But, I think that things have fundamentally changed between
our two countries . Yet we still have ballistic missiles pointed at
each other. To what end? We are not going to fight each other.
So, it's now a question of how we walk away from the cold war,
not do we walk away from the cold war.
In walking away from the cold war, one area we must
investigate is shared ballistic missile defenses with the
Russians . That requires building trust with the Russians . Nor
is it an easy thing to do since they are still coming from a
bipolar world view, and I think that they are genuinely
concerned about our ability to outstrip them in technology.
They want to be in the driver's seat in determining how we
march forward on ballistic missile defenses, and the ABM
Treaty gives them the leverage to do that. I ran into this
problem with Ivanov. We were at the national test facility,
which is an impressive operation, and we were briefed by
people from our Ballistic Missile Defense Organization . You
could see that General Ivanov, who is a very thoughtful,
intelligent, and tough guy, was threatened . He looked as if he
were thinking, "My God, I didn't know they were this good ."
I knew we were going to reach this point, so I had spoken
with him all morning about how could we cooperate with him.
"What we need to do," I said, "is work together on this . We
need to share these technologies . You have things that we
can't match, like heavy-lift access to space. There's a marriage
right there-our technology in ballistic missiles and your
access to space to put things in orbit . There's no reason our
two countries can't work together, other than the fact that
there are those in both of our capitals who are still very close
to the cold war." And he said, "What is your problem in
achieving this technology?" I said, "Well, it's the budget. We
56
NEW-ERA WARFARE
have to fight for these programs before our Congress ." When
he went to get on the airplane to leave, he turned and said,
"Good luck with your Congress ."
In both Washington and Moscow there are people who are
still operating in a cold war context. I think the Russians are
terrified that we are going to get ahead of them in ballistic
missile defenses. So, it is very important that we do things,
such as share ballistic-missile warning as an entree, and then
become involved in shared ballistic-missile defenses. At that
point, the ABM Treaty is moot.
How you build trust with the Russians is a matter of a lot of
effort, discussion, and dialogue. But I think to approach it
from the cold war standpoint is the wrong tack. I think we
must approach it looking at things through their eyes as they
look to the south, not over the pole. I have no doubts that the
Russians are quite willing to do that, given time.
The biggest problem we have is our own lack of
understanding of the threat . I'm amazed by that. Many people
come to Cheyenne Mountain where we show them the ballistic
missile warning systems. Then we ask them, "What do you
think of our ballistic missile defenses?" I would estimate that
60 percent of the people say, "They have got to be the finest in
the world, and we can't thank you enough." But the truth is
we have none .
That is a scary thing-they don't know. The danger here is
that if we are threatened by ballistic missiles someday, the
American people are going to feel betrayed. So, I think that,
while we have no threat for now, we must communicate to the
American people that they do not in fact have ballistic missile
defenses, and that there is a potential for them at some point
in the future to be attacked.
Shared Defense Against Ballistic Missiles
What do we need to do? First, recognize that the world has

changed; second, recognize that the cold war is over; and,
finally, recognize that we and the Russians have much to gain
from getting rid of our nuclear arsenals . Think about this : the
nation most threatened by the proliferation of missiles and
57
weapons of mass destruction is Russia . They are surrounded

by North Korea, China, Pakistan, India, Syria, Iraq, Iran,
Afghanistan, and Ukraine, and all these states have nuclear
weapons or nuclear-weapons programs, and all have ballistic
missiles or ballistic-missile programs . Russia needs ballistic
missile defenses more than does the United States. Why do we
not start the process by sharing warning, and as we build
trust, then sharing defenses?
What's the cost of sharing warning, for example? It means
we give up the opportunity to attack them on a surprise basis.
We have people who are fighting shared warning, but I think
their arguments are based on cold war fears, not on the world
we find today. I think that we have to recognize this world is a
dangerous place in many areas, and that proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them
are the true threat that we need to be addressing. Diplomacy
is best, and we have nonproliferation regimes, which we need
to pursue. But there are determined adversaries out there who
are not deterrable by counterforce because, if they are smart
at all, they know that we are not going to use nuclear
weapons.
What are nuclear weapons good against? They are good
against cities . Are we going to bomb the capital of some
country in order to deter them from using nuclear weapons?
They know we are not going to do that. Now, we do have
sufficient conventional military strength, and particularly with
a coalition as in the Gulf War, we can be effective on the
battlefield . But if there is a question about our national will,
then it's in some nation's interest to build these weapons of
mass destruction and threaten people .
We must be credible on the basis of conventional defense . In
Desert Storm, Saddam Hussein had more chemical weapons
than I could bomb. We had to make a decision to go after the
production areas and those storage areas that were in the
immediate area of the battlefield . I could not have even begun
to take out all of his chemical storage-there are just not
enough sorties in the day.
Although Iraqi had abundant chemical weapons, they did
not use them in Desert Storm. We interrogated their people as
to why this was so. I thought perhaps it was a concern that we
58
NEW-ERA WARFARE
might retaliate with nuclear weapons, and certainly we made

things ambiguous in that regard . But the Iraqi generals
reported the reason they didn't use chemical weapons was
because if they used them, they knew our troops were better
protected than their troops . They felt that if they used
chemical weapons, they would suffer many more casualties
than we would .
I think that they were right in their assessment, and I think
that it highlights the importance of defenses being a key
element in deterrence . If you have ballistic missile defenses,
then that makes another country's acquiring ballistic missiles
less important, and in fact, may deter them from spending
large amounts of money to build them.
Our allies and neutral nations would benefit greatly if we
had wide-area ballistic-missile defenses. For example, suppose
we had the capability to share ballistic missile defenses on a
global basis, say a space-based system. You could go to a
country such as Israel-which I believe has nuclear weapons-
and say, "If you get rid of your nuclear weapons, we'll share
ballistic missile defenses with you ." Or suppose we went to
India and Pakistan and said, "Look, we understand that you
don't like each other, we understand that you are both relying
on ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons to deter one
another, and that if you have a war, there is liable to be a
nonrational decision which causes one or the other or both to
use these weapons . The problem is, we live downwind, and we
don't like it. So, while you may want to use these systems,
we're not going to let you. We are going to preclude you from
doing that, at least to the extent we can, by using our ballistic
missile defenses to interfere with any missile attack that takes
place ." I think that use of active defenses can be as important
as using ballistic missile defenses in the direct defense of our
own nation.
Consider this : The former head of the Japanese Air Force,
General Ishizuka, and I have talked for hours about the
challenges in defending against possible missile attacks,
because it is a subject of very high concern in Japan. The
military leadership in Japan is very concerned about
ballistic-missile defense. One of their concerns is that their
people, or elements of their population, will lose confidence in
59
the United States as the protector of their security, and they

are apprehensive about what effect that might have . If the
Japanese decide they must go their own way, and renounce
their constitution and develop a very aggressive outreach in
military capability, what would that do to the whole Pacific
Rim, or to the countries that well remember WWII? So, it's
important that we have the ability to share ballistic missile
defenses with a country like Japan.
Working with the Russians, the Japanese, and others will
also affect the Chinese. The number of warheads the Chinese
have is significant in terms of inflicting pain, but in terms of
attacking Russia or the United States, they are probably not
decisive. The Chinese are pragmatic, so you can work with
them if you understand what their internal concerns are, such
as control of the Chinese border. So I think that over the long
term, if you ignore them in this regard and work with the
Russians, the Japanese and countries like that, you can then
say to the Chinese, "By the way, we're going to neutralize your
ballistic missiles."
Does it mean we'll have peace? No, I don't think so. I think
you have to ask yourself this one question: "Would it be a
better world if we had ballistic missile defenses and no nuclear
weapons, or nuclear weapons and no ballistic-missile
defenses?" I think that this is the choice, and I think that is
where we need to have the vision and the courage to take on
this mission of ballistic missile defense in new-era warfare .
Reducing Nuclear Arsenals
One of the greatest potential benefits of ballistic missile

defense specially shared warning and wide-area defenses-
is in reducing the value of nuclear ballistic missiles. There is a
significant domestic value here as well, but the costs of
developing, deploying, and operating such defenses are not
trivial . In fact, in the current budget environment, you can't
expect the military to take the lead. But I think ballistic
missile defenses would compete very well, particularly if you
trade them off against the cost of maintaining nuclear-
weapons forces.
60
NEW-ERA WARFARE
Our nuclear-weapons forces are not trivial in terms of cost.

The Air Force has got to come to grips with relinquishing the
ICBMs . We just put three black boxes on each one of the
Minutemen, at a million dollars a box. The cost to the Navy
operating the Trident submarines is certainly not trivial.
What are we going to have to do when we have to replace the
tritium? Are we going to restart the Savannah River Project?
So, I think if you worked a trade-off one against the other you
could probably free up a great deal of money.
There is another argument made by those who cling to cold
war ideas, and that is that we need to maintain our nuclear
weapons to deter other nations . These people point to the
proliferation of the technologies for weapons of mass
destruction, particularly nuclear weapons, and worry that
without our own nuclear arsenals we will be ripe for attack.
But does our nuclear deterrent force really limit the threat
posed by the proliferation of such weapons? Such weapons
might be delivered by a variety of means. Aircraft and missiles
carrying such weapons might not be the only threat. Those
attempting to smuggle nuclear weapons into the United States
might do so in a manner that is not traceable . But even if we
identified the culprits, we would probably not be able to use a
nuclear weapon against them. Nonetheless, we ought to have
the conventional military power to be able to influence them
on a deterrable basis .
In other words, the question is, are we being well-served if,
as we cut our military forces down, we reserve large amounts
of money to preserve weapons we probably cannot employ, as
opposed to acquring more very capable conventional forces? If a
nation uses a nuclear weapon or poison gas against us, then
we must have military options to take-and strong conven-
tional forces provide those options .
So, you have two problems : deterrence, and what do you do
if deterrence fails . Anybody who would poison Chicago is
nondeterrable, because they are not operating on our same
logic train. Therefore, I think that some potential aggressors
that are indifferent to whether we have nuclear weapons or
not. I believe Saddam Hussein, in many ways, was indifferent
to nuclear weapons . In fact, sometimes I wonder if he really
was not looking for Israel to throw a nuclear weapon at him.
61
So, the idea of using US nuclear weapons to deter an

adversary is probably only useful with reference to the
Russians . That's what I believe .
However, let me be clear on this . We cannotwe must not-
unilaterally disarm. You must do it in concert with the
Russians, and you must have a vision. But we seem to lack
vision, and to be in a reactive mode, which precludes
long-term planning . What we mean by long-term is really a
function of perception of threat, of building trust with Russia . I
would not suggest that we can walk away from nuclear
deterrence other than arm-in-arm with the Russians . There is
an opportunity to let other nations have nuclear arsenals and
yet work with them on a business-like basis. I personally am
not threatened by England and France having nuclear
weapons, or even Israel . I think China also tends to fall in that
category . Nuclear disarmament has to be worked in terms of
the Russia/US relationship .
Maintaining Conventional Strength
It is absolutely essential that we maintain US conventional

military strength-the type of conventional strength that we
exhibited in Desert Storm. I think that we are approaching
what I call the dominance of defense . The thing that scares
me, of course, is the French reached that conclusion in 1930 . I
see so little value in warfare.
For example, in Saddam Hussein's case, I am not sure that
we missed the boat in not dethroning him. If I were somebody
living in Baghdad, what threatens me most are the Kurds and
the Shiites. So, while I might hate Saddam Hussein for what
he does to my family, my economy, and my nation, an Iraqi
might believe that he is the one person who was keeping me
alive. If I were a Kuwaiti, I would hate the Iraqis for what they
did to my children and my country, but on the other hand, I'm
not sure I would want Iran on my northern border either.
Probably the mistake we made was in our publicity during
the Gulf War, which demonized Saddam Hussein. He is a
gangster and an evil person . But in the Vietnam War, we
became very involved in the internal affairs of South Vietnam
62
NEW-ERA WARFARE
to our disadvantage, and I think the thing we were all

concerned about was getting involved in solving the problems
of Iraq, when Iraq's problems are not solvable. So, in my
opinion, if the Iraqis want Saddam, they can elect him, let him
try to run Iraq, but Saddam and Iraq would be very wise not to
step over the boundary lines again.
Of course that's fine, if Saddam Hussein is just a modest
risk taker . But if you are faced with a dictator who in fact runs
risks, a defense-only capability may not be an adequate US
military posture. We also should have a very credible
conventional military capability .
I think we also have to remember that each war is different .
We are ill-prepared for things like Bosnia or Somalia, and
there are those who want to build forces for that. We fight a
Desert Storm only every 10 or 15 years. But, I think the point
is that you've got to be able to fight the Desert Storms
successfully, and obviously counterforce is necessary . I'm not
sure what the campaign against Iraq's economy achieved . But
basically, our goal was to eject Iraq from Kuwait and cripple
Iraq's nuclear/biological/chemical capabilities, and I do
believe we did have an impact . We went after leadership, and
we went after it in a military context, not in a political context.
Since Saddam was the top Iraqi military leader, it would have
been nice if we had gotten him, but only because he was their
top military figure, not because he was their president .
Conclusions
The fundamental point is clear : the United States and its

allies must pursue ballistic missile defenses. Ballistic missile
defenses are the key to new era warfare-to opportunities for
reducing nuclear arsenals and to ensuring the type of
conventional strength that enables the United States to secure
its interests in the future. As far as I am concerned, it is
simply time to get on with it.
63
Chapter 3
The Revolution in Military Affairs
Jeffrey McKitrick, James Blackwell, Fred Littlepage,

George Kraus, Richard Blanchfield and Dale Hill*
According to Andrew Marshall, director of the Office of Net

Assessments in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, "a
Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) is a major change in the
nature of warfare brought about by the innovative application
of new technologies which, combined with dramatic changes
in military doctrine and operational and organizational
concepts, fundamentally alters the character and conduct of
military operations ." Such an RMA is now occurring, and
those who understand it and take advantage of it will enjoy a
decisive advantage on future battlefields .
Military theorists around the world have long noted the
historical discontinuities in the conduct of warfare caused by
the advent of new technologies and weapon systems. The
Soviets called these discontinuities "military-technical
revolutions ." Recently, analysts in the United States have
started calling them RMAs . This change in terminology was
meant to capture the nontechnical dimensions of military,
organizations and operations, the sum of which provide a large
part of overall military capabilities .
The nature of these discontinuities is such that warfare after
the "revolution" is unlike what went on before in profound and
significant ways . Throughout history, there have been a
number of such revolutions . Gunpowder produced an early
military revolution in the Western World, transforming both
land and naval warfare . During the mid-nineteenth century,
industrialization revolutionized warfare through railroads, the
telegraph, the steam engine, rifled guns, and ironclad ships .
More recently, the mechanization of warfare during the
*Robert Kim, Mark Jacobson, John Moyle, and Steven Kenney also assisted in the
preparation of this chapter.
65
interwar period led to the development of blitzkrieg, carrier

aviation, amphibious warfare, and strategic bombing .
In some cases, the changes in technology associated with
these revolutions changed not only transportation,
communication, and warfare but also entire societies as well .
During the transportation revolution, for example, railroads
altered the economies of nations and allowed them to move
military forces farther and faster and sustained them longer .
Moreover, these societal changes created new sets of
operational and strategic targets. We currently characterize
these kinds of revolutions as "social-military revolutions."
To date, the bulk of the intellectual and physical development
associated with the current RMA has focused on new systems
and technologies . What is needed now is a more careful
analysis of the new operational concepts and new
organizations that might best help us realize the full potential
of these new systems and technologies. To reach that level of
analysis, we need to start with an appreciation of the historical
and geostrategic contexts in which the RMA may unfold.
What motivated past changes in the conduct of warfare?
Who might our future competitors be? What will be their
political and military objectives? How might they choose to
organize and equip militarily to achieve those objectives? How
might the conduct of warfare change? The answers to these
questions will assist us in identifying new RMA warfare areas
and, in turn, help identify what new military capabilities the
United States will need .
Before proceeding, however, we must issue a word of
caution. Although we think that we now stand at the start of a
long period in which we may face a RMA, we cannot be certain
about when the transition period might start, how long it
might last, what new competitors might arise, when they will
arise, or what new warfare areas might be developed, not to
mention a host of other key questions. In short, we do not
have an absolute grasp of the scope, pace, and implications of
this possible RMA.
We can make useful observations even at this early stage.
During and immediately after the First World War,
forward-thinking military officers such as Col J.F.C. Fuller of
the British army and Maj Earl Ellis of the US Marine Corps
66
THE REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS
outlined the basic features of armored warfare and amphibious

warfare . They defined these concepts decades before the
necessary systems existed and at a time when the political
circumstances of the next war were uncertain.
More recently, science fiction writers have been exploring
future war-fighting capabilities . The novels Starship Troopers
by Robert Heinlein (1957) and Ender's Game by Orson Scott
Card (1977) alluded to military systems that today equate to
artificial intelligence and virtual reality . These future systems
appeared to be pure fantasy at the time, but yesterday's fiction
has, in many instances, become today's reality . It should be
instructive to those of us engaged in looking to the twenty-first
century that military officers and authors were able to look
into the future and picture types of warfare that became real
or today are becoming real .
Achieving analytic progress requires discussion of these
issues with as much definition and certainty as possible in
order to give analysts something concrete to critique and,
thereby, improve . It is our hope that such discussion will
facilitate identifying new ideas and animate a discovery
process that includes war games and simulations over the
course of the next three to five years . It is in this spirit of
discovery that we offer the following portrayal of the unfolding
revolution in military affairs .
Lessons of Past RMAs
RMAs have risen from various sources, with many-but not

all-of them technological . Societal change contributed to a
military revolution during the wars of the French Revolution
and the Napoleonic era, in which the levee en masse allowed
for the creation of larger, national armies .
In the technologically based military revolutions of this
century, different scientific fields have provided the enabling
factor. For example, chemistry and early physics drove many
of the critical advances during World War I. In this war of
gunpowder, the rate at which weapons fired and the ranges
that the projectiles traveled decided the fate of many battles .
67
Advanced physics drove the next RMA, which extended from

the mastery of flight to improved radios and the introduction
of radar through the creation of nuclear weapons at the end of
World War II.
The current RMA has as its source what has been called new
physical principles . These principles focus on technologies
such as lasers and particle beams . Current trends indicate
that the next revolution in military affairs may have a
biological source . Some manifestations of these biological
advances may include biosensors, bioelectronics,
nanotechnologies, distributed systems, neural networks, and
performance-enhancing drugs.
New technologies and systems significantly influence the
RMA, although the resulting RMA could take one of a number
of forms. The interwar innovations of armored warfare by the
German army, amphibious warfare by the US Marine Corps,
carrier warfare by the US Navy, and strategic bombing by the
US Army Air Forces have been characterized as "combined-
system RMAs ." Their revolutionary nature derived from a
collection of military systems put together in new ways to
achieve a revolutionary effect.
A different type of RMA is the "single-system RMA." An
example is the nuclear revolution of the 1940s and 1950s, in
which a single technology, nuclear fission/ fusion, drove the
revolution . Another example of a single-system RMA is the
gunpowder revolution, in which gunpowder transformed land
and naval warfare through the use of siege guns, field artillery,
infantry firearms, and naval artillery.
Evidence suggests that the revolution unfolding today is
neither a combined-system nor a single-system RMA but an
integrated-system RMA. The outlook is for the rapid evolution
of new technologies eventually leading to the development of
several advanced military systems.
These systems, when joined with their accompanying
operational and organizational concepts, will become
integrated systems . In contrast to developments during the
interwar period, this system-of-systems approach will aim to
take advantage of the cumulative effect of employing each of
the new capabilities at the same time.
68
In World War II, each new form of warfare took place in its
own operating medium-armored warfare on land battlefields,
strategic bombing in the air over homelands, carrier warfare at
sea, and amphibious warfare at the intersection of land and
sea-and only occasionally interacted with the others. In the
current RMA, the integrated employment of all the new
systems will be essential to take advantage of their true value.
Nevertheless, this forecast does not exclude the possibility of
a single-system RMA. To avoid strategic surprise, we must
continue to think about breakthroughs in critical areas such
as information technology, biogenetics, and others .
Unforeseen advances in these areas could bring about a
sudden, significant, and solely owned military advantage to
the country that achieves a breakthrough .
The same holds true for a combined system RMA .
Furthermore, there is also the possibility that the information
revolution may result in far-reaching societal changes, putting
us on the path of a social-military revolution . Such a
revolution holds profound, but somewhat different, implications
for the changing nature of warfare .
It is important to remember that technologies and systems
enable but do not cause military revolutions . Past military
revolutions have been driven by requirements that have
motivated military organizations to innovate in order to
overcome the limitations of existing practice. Such strategic,
operational, and tactical requirements determined whether
technologies were adopted and how they were employed .
Without them, stagnation can prevail, even in states
possessing technologies with revolutionary implications .
An example of this principle is the gunpowder revolution of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries . In Europe,
gunpowder weapons fundamentally changed the conduct of all
areas of warfare-maneuver warfare, siege warfare, and naval
warfare-on account of the constant competition between rival
states of roughly equal military power. Imperial China
developed gunpowder and firearms a century before Europe
possessed them, but stagnated in all areas . China fell behind
in the gunpowder revolution largely because of its vast
population, which allowed it to overcome any land or sea
threats through sheer weight of numbers .
69
In contrast, the smaller states of Asia made significant

innovations in response to pressing military requirements . In
sixteenth century Japan, where rival warlords strove for
dominance, the rise of firearm-equipped infantry and the use
of volley fire mirrored developments in Europe. Korea in the
1590s responded to the threat from reunified Japan by
developing its "turtle ships," ironclad, cannon-armed galleys
that provided a technological advantage that proved essential
to defeating three successive Japanese invasions .
Another example is the interwar period, in which all of the
major powers possessed the same technologies but only a few
countries created new operations concepts and organizations .
For example, the development of carrier aviation took place in
the United States and Japan for the purpose of fighting major
naval engagements in the Pacific . Carrier aviation withered in
Britain's Royal Navy, whose main tasks were fighting in
confined waters such as the Mediterranean Sea and combating
German commerce raiders on the high seas.
In the case of armored warfare, only the Germans employed
tanks, radio, and airplanes in new ways in 1940 even though all
of the essential technologies had been available since World War
I. This situation was due in part to Germany's unique strategic
problem of being surrounded by enemies . This problem led to an
operational requirement for rapid offensives to defeat enemy
states quickly, and the emphasis on offense dictated tactical
requirements for mobility, firepower, and protection .
Germany thus integrated tanks, infantry, and artillery in the
Panzer division and supplemented them with close air
support . France and Britain, constrained by defensive
strategic and operational concepts on land, did not innovate
and paid the price in May of 1940 .
Past RMAs hold another significant lesson for the current
RMA. In past RMAs many of the key systems were already
used in combat or in civilian applications decades before
significant changes occurred in military organizations . For
example, railroads began carrying commerce in the 1830s, but
in the 1860s only the Prussian army under Helmuth von
Moltke, the elder, used them to facilitate intricate mobilization
plans that conferred a significant operational advantage at the
start of a campaign .
70
Similarly, tanks, radios, and close support aircraft were

used in quantity in World War I, but they did not realize their
true potential until the Germans devised new organizational
and operational concepts for them in the 1930s . Likewise, the
implementation of revolutionary operational and organiza-
tional concepts in this RMA may require a long time even
though most of the key systems probably are already in
development or have even been used in combat. We need to
start thinking immediately about the shape of warfare in 2020
in order to capitalize on the RMA in a timely fashion.
Future Competitors
If we hope to understand the scope and potential impact of

the RMA, we first must understand our potential future
competitors. The threats and the vulnerabilities of these
competitors will clearly influence how the United States should
exploit the RMA.
We must stress that we are talking about potential military
competitors-not political and economic competitors-although
politics and economics are related factors . Developing and
assessing alternative futures--projecting the nature of future
competitors, their force structures, and modes of operation-is
far from an exact science . Indeed, if the events of the last five
years are any indicator, current approaches at predicting the
future will continue to meet with only marginal success.
While it is difficult, if not impossible, to assess accurately
which nations will become peer competitors in 25 years, it is
possible to imagine one nation, or a combination of nations,
rising to challenge US national security interests . History
provides many examples of potential competitors rapidly
elevating themselves first to regional and then to peer
competitor status. Japan and Germany prior to World War II
are examples of the ability of nations to evolve rapidly up the
competitor scale through willpower and sacrifice . To assume
that we are unlikely to see a peer competitor in the next 25
years is to ignore history.
Given that a peer competitor is likely to emerge, the most
important question is not who the competitor is but the likely
71
characteristics of that competitor . Leading experts in the field

of assessing the nature of future competition have provided
significant insights into how we view and think about potential
competitors .
Dr Paul Bracken of Yale University, in his article on "The
Military After Next," 1 , characterizes nations as Type A, B, and
C competitors . Type A competitors are peer competitors, able
to compete with the United States on a global basis across a
full range of military capabilities . Type B competitors are
regional competitors, able to compete regionally, and only
across a limited set of military capabilities . Bracken's Type C
competitors are terrorists, low-intensity conflict countries,
drug lords, and the like. We feel this type of competitor is not
really a national security competitor but a political competitor.
It is more useful to think of Type C competitors as being niche
competitors . A niche competitor would be a country that has
chosen to specialize in a specific military capability that
appears to have high leverage against US forces. This type of
characterization seems useful in bounding the range of
possible competitiveness in a military sense.
Dr Stephen Rosen of Harvard University has framed the
debate on future competitors by dividing the world into "zones
of peace" and "zones of turmoil ."2 His fundamental division of
the great powers places the industrialized democracies in the
zone of peace with all other countries in the zone of turmoil .
Conflicts will most likely arise among nations in the zone of
turmoil, or between them and countries in the zone of peace. It
is difficult to develop scenarios that lead to wars among
nations in the zone of peace.
So long as the countries remain democratic, Dr Rosen cannot
envision a war between the United States and, for example, a
democratic Japan or Germany. Dr Rosen's analysis reminds
us that it is important to consider political traditions, cultural
norms, economic strength, alliances, and many other factors
as we think about the evolution of competition between states.
Furthermore, states may swing between peace and turmoil,
dramatically change goals and directions, or gain or lose military
capabilities, making our strategic planning even more difficult.
To understand the nature of future competitors and, more
importantly, plan for their potential emergence requires an
72
understanding of the heart and soul (or national character) of

the countries under consideration. By "national character" we
mean what makes them tick-what factors (current and future)
would push them along the path from niche, to regional, to peer
competitor.
Such considerations might include, but are not limited to,
the following:
" Historical context
" Cultural and social beliefs (mores, etc.)
" Demographics (rate of change, age of population)
" Geography (landlocked, access to ports, agriculture)
" Economic development (trade, industrial base-
indigenous/other)
" Political system (democratic, autocratic, stability)
" Access to foreign markets and technologies (sunrise/
sunset systems, information technologies and capability)
" Military force structure (disposition, training)
" Nature of alliances (cooperative agreements, traditional/
nontraditional adversaries)
In other words, it is essential that we understand what a nation
or region is to more accurately reflect what it may become.
Understanding the national character and proclivities of a
nation is only part of the equation . Equally important is an
appreciation of national, regional, and/or global trends that may
act in synergy with national character to propel a nation to
competitive status. Trends associated with economics, the pace
of technological innovation, the development of military weapon
systems, the growth of new operational and organizational
approaches, and the proliferation and diffusion of military
systems and technologies will all interact with the national
character and daily events of virtually every nation in the world.
While some analysts may view the birth of competitor states
(China or Japan for instance), as being quite predictable, we
should be cautious in ascribing too much certainty to such
predictions . Trends may cause nations to transform in
unanticipated ways, thereby giving rise to a number of surprise
competitors. Nevertheless, evaluating trends in the context of
national character may help to narrow the field of who these
competitor states may be.
73
Taking into account our understanding of the national

character of potential competitor states/regions, our subsequent
analysis should focus on the three dimensions of the RMA
required for a nation to achieve competitor status. First is the
conscious decision on the part of a state to acquire all or
portions of what might be termed an RMA complex . Second is
the ability to acquire or develop the systems that constitute
RMA-type technologies. Last, and perhaps most important, is
the ability, organizationally and operationally, to adapt
technologies in ways that bring into being the full military
potential of an RMA.
In the analysis of the current RMA, which may take decades
to emerge, analysis of likely competitors will be a long,
arduous, and ongoing process . Today, we could identify a
number of potential candidates as peer competitors (Russia,
Japan, China, Germany, a unified Korea, an Asian coalition,
etc.), but whether they achieve that status remains in question.
An even more interesting result of the analysis may be the
surprises-new candidates, not unlike Japan in 1940, which
have the potential to rise from niche to regional or peer com-
petitor status in the early decades of the twenty-first century.
In either of these eventualities, it is likely that for a period of
time in the future, the United States will be faced with a number
of regional competitors while not being forced to deal with a
true peer competitor . However, historical precedent leads us to
believe in the inevitability that a large peer competitor will
emerge over time. It will be critical for the United States to
understand the nature of the challenges posed by such a peer
long before the competitor achieves rough parity across
important military areas.
Understanding the natures of competitors is especially
important because of their influence on emerging forms of
warfare . Judging from the example of past RMAs, distinct
approaches to harnessing new technologies will surface in
those states seeking to exploit them . During the interwar
period, the Germans, British, and French followed different
directions in the usage of tanks; similarly, the US and British
navies differed in their development of carrier aviation .
The most successful approaches will not necessarily come
from the countries most experienced with the relevant
74
technologies, as evidenced by Britain's lagging in the

development of tanks and carrier aviation despite having
invented them . Success will most likely come through
favorable matchups between competing doctrines . Obtaining
an advantage over a peer competitor through the RMA will
require understanding likely opponents' tendencies in order to
determine the optimum approach .
New Warfare Areas
We think the current RMA, like the interwar period, will

involve the emergence of multiple new warfare areas . A warfare
area is a form of warfare with unique military objectives and is
characterized by association with particular forces or systems .
Examples of warfare areas that emerged in the interwar period
are armored warfare, carrier warfare, amphibious warfare, and
strategic bombing. We have currently identified four potential
new warfare areas-long-range precision strike, information
warfare, dominating maneuver, and space warfare. Other areas
that we have yet to identify could also develop .
Of the four potential new warfare areas, precision strike is
the most developed conceptually, although even here much
analytic work remains to be done . Much work has been done
in the area of information warfare, yet it remains a poorly
understood concept . Analysis of dominating maneuver and
space warfare has just begun.
The warfare areas that we have identified are likely to
emerge in the long run but will not necessarily be developed
fully in the near future . Doctrinal development is a long and
uncertain process, and military history offers numerous
examples of unexploited warfare areas-concepts intended to
revolutionize warfare that did not come to fruition . Tech-
nological limitations, conflicts with prevailing doctrine, or lack
of strategic purpose derailed these developments .
In the late nineteenth century, the Jeune Ecole in France
sought to exploit an emerging weapon, the torpedo, to contest
British sea control with small, cheap torpedo boats for
commerce raiding and coastal defense . Their attempt to create
a new warfare area led to a decade of doctrinal uncertainty in
75
naval warfare but failed by the turn of the century owing to the
ineffectiveness of the primitive torpedoes and torpedo boats,
the rising influence of Adm Alfred Thayer Mahan, and the
emergence of the Anglo-French entente .
After the Korean War, Gen James Gavin and others in the
US Army sought to create a new form of land warfare using the
helicopter . Seeking greater strategic mobility between theaters
and a "mobility differential" over the battlefield, they envisioned
helicopter-equipped units that could rapidly deploy in a crisis
and would use their superior mobility to their advantage in the
cavalry roles of scouting, pursuit, and delaying actions . They
succeeded in making helicopter aviation a significant part of
the Army, but the Army developed the helicopter as part of a
combined-arms team rather than as the basis for autonomous
units, fielding only one air assault division during and since
the Vietnam War. The vulnerability of helicopters to air
defenses and the predominance of armor and infantry in
existing doctrine each contributed to this result.
Short-term technological and doctrinal barriers will not
diminish the ultimate importance of a new warfare area. There
are past examples of warfare-area concepts that were abortive
in one context but resurfaced in other settings with the
emergence of the right enabling technologies or doctrinal
pressures. The ideas of the Jeune Ecole appeared again in
Germany during the First World War, when practical
submarines were the enabling technology and the need to
strangle British commerce provided the doctrinal pressure.
Similarly, the nascent armored warfare concepts of J .F.C .
Fuller and the Salisbury maneuvers went undeveloped in
Britain but reemerged in the German army. The fact that
concepts discarded by Britain and France provided the basis
for U-boat warfare and the Panzer divisions illustrates that
fundamentally sound concepts will eventually be exploited- if
not by the United States, then by its competitors .
Precision Strike
Precision strike may well be the most thoroughly understood

new warfare area of the next revolution in military affairs . This
is true because the United States has been a leader in the
76
development and deployment of such systems since the

1970s . The creation of precision strike capabilities during the
latter stages of the Cold War in fact cast a long technology
shadow and deeply affected Soviet military thought .
The Red Army gave us far more credit than we deserved for
developing the reconnaissance strike complex. It probably saw
tests of parts of systems, such as the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA) "assault breaker" missiles
in the mid-1970s, as indicative of imminent deployment .
Somewhat ironically, the Soviet military may have more fully
comprehended the revolutionary impact that such systems would
have on future battle than did the US military establishment .
Precision strike in the context of the coming RMA is well
beyond its predecessors of follow-on forces attack (FOFA) and
joint precision interdiction, which are its conceptual forebears .
At the time of the development of such precision strike systems
as the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS)
and the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), the idea was
to create a maneuver differential for NATO ground forces.
NATO planned to delay and disrupt the arrival of second-
echelon and third-echelon Warsaw Pact armored forces before
they could overwhelm the outnumbered and outgunned NATO
defenders . Such deep strikes would extend the battlefield ; they
would delay in time the advance of the conflict to the nuclear
threshold ; that would permit reinforcing forces to arrive from
the continental United States (CONUS). This was planned to
allow for the creation of a conventional counteroffensive force
to turn back the attacking Warsaw Pact armored advance.
The Gulf War demonstrated the potential for such deep
strike systems not only to create a maneuver differential, but
at least potentially to be decisive in themselves . Precision
strike, in the context of the unfolding RMA, is the ability to
locate high-value, time-sensitive fixed and mobile targets; to
destroy them with a high degree of confidence ; and to
accomplish this within operationally and strategically
significant time lines while minimizing collateral damage,
friendly fire casualties, and enemy counterstrikes . In 2020,
precision strike technologies will create the potential to
achieve strategic effects at intercontinental distances .
77
The potential effect of precision strike can be seen in the

dramatic increase of capabilities to strike strategic targets . In
1943 the US Eighth Air Force prosecuted only 50 strategic
targets during the course of the entire year. In the first 24
hours of Desert Storm, the combined air forces prosecuted 150
strategic targets-a thousand-fold increase over 1943 capabilities .
By the year 2020, it is not out of the realm of possibility that
as many as 500 strategically important targets could be struck
in the first minute of the campaign-representing a five
thousand-fold increase over Desert Storm capabilities .
It is envisioned that precision strike will be able to achieve
effects similar to those of nuclear weapons but without the
attendant risk of escalation to intolerable levels of destruction .
When directed against targets comprising the enemy center of
gravity, precision strike might itself prove decisive . For it to do
so, however, requires a much clearer understanding than we
have had in past wars about what constitutes the enemy's
center of gravity and what it takes to affect it.
The precision strike area of warfare presents a significant
challenge to the organizational adaptation of the US military .
These systems achieve decisive impact only if they are
integrated at the operational or strategic level of war. This
means that a single theater or global commander must have
control over the employment of precision strike systems, as
was done during Desert Storm.
A potential problem does arise however in the development
of current precision strike systems, which are jealously
guarded by the individual military services and even by some
DOD-wide agencies . This arrangement tends to lead to the
acquisition of systems that are duplicative rather than
complementary. Notwithstanding the potential benefits to be
derived from having the services compete for the precision
strike mission area, there is a potential danger that in the
current budgetary climate such competition may prove to be
counterproductive .
There is a further potential problem in that even should we
manage to orchestrate a successful joint program manage-
ment scheme, the architecture that frames the development of
disparate precision strike technologies and systems may not
be structurally coherent . This could result in several separate
78
and perhaps inherently incompatible components, none of

which have much military utility by themselves . There is a
growing need for a system-of-systems framework to define
precision strike requirements, as well as a need for an
architecture which would drive the development of advanced
technologies and systems applicable to precision strike.
We must begin now to move beyond the service-specific
approach to the employment of precision strike and
experiment with new organizational approaches to employing
these systems on the battlefields of 2020. These systems will
likely be theater-wide or even global, and there will be no
single service able to provide a service-specific core organiza-
tional unit to serve as the basis for the commander-in-chief s
joint task force for precision strike operations. Therefore, new
organizational units may have to be cut out of whole cloth .
This does not imply that massive new commands or new
organizations must be created . In fact, we may need to
consider just the opposite approach . We may need to consider
the power inherent in the new information technologies that
could greatly expand a commander's span of control, allowing
us to eliminate one or more levels of command and to
consequently accelerate the decision-making and command
and control cycle .
The essence of precision strike is the ability to sense the
enemy at operational and strategic depth, recognize his
operational concept and strategic plan, and select and
prioritize attacks on enemy targets of value. All of this is
intended to achieve decisive impact on the outcome of the
campaign . To be most effective those attacks probably should
be synchronized in time and space.
The revolutionary potential of precision strike derives from
the technologies that provided a glimpse of their own potential
during Operation Desert Storm . These and related technologies
enable commanders to have continuous wide-area surveillance
and target acquisition, near-real-time responsiveness, and
highly accurate, long-range weapons at their disposal.
Such technologies by themselves have the potential to change
dramatically the way wars are waged. Integrating precision
strike capabilities with dominating maneuver and information
war may create an especially potent RMA.
79
By 2020, real-time responsiveness of sensor-to-shooter

systems must become a reality. For the first time in history,
this responsiveness will allow the striking force to maneuver
fires rather than forces over long ranges, and allow direct and
simultaneous attack on many of the enemy's centers of gravity.
This warfare area is currently being driven by advances in
technology. The key improvements that are now occurring are
in broadening the environmental conditions for wide area
surveillance and precision targeting; security and counter-
measures ; data processing and communications ; delivery
platforms ; precision munitions; and positioning/locating
devices. The advances needed to exploit our lead in this warfare
area include continuous situation awareness and improve-
ments in data fusion, mission planning, and battle damage
assessment (BDA) .
At the same time, we need an equal effort in developing new
operational concepts and organizations for the application of
precision strike. As in other new warfare areas, it may be that
the greatest military payoff will come from operational
approaches and organizational adaptation-not from systems .
Information Warfare
Another revolution under way in warfare is that associated

with information systems, their associated capabilities, and
their effects on military organizations and operations . We call
this new warfare area information warfare, which we define as
the struggle between two or more opponents for control of the
information battlespace.
At the national level, information warfare could be viewed as
a new form of strategic warfare, one of the key issues being the
vulnerability of socio-economic systems, and the question is
how to attack the enemy's system while protecting yours . At
the military operational level, information warfare may con-
tribute to major changes in the conduct of warfare ; therefore,
one of the key issues is the vulnerability of command, control,
communications, and intelligence systems, and the question is
how to attack the enemy's system while protecting yours .
As we increasingly assimilate information capabilities into
our military structure and focus more and more on
80
establishing and maintaining an "information advantage" as a

war-winning strategy, we also change the vulnerabilities of US
forces, and, ultimately of the United States itself. The force
structure that will implement information warfare 25 years
from now may well be different from today's military in more
ways than just its equipment. Moreover, the character of
warfare may change in ways that affect our thinking regarding
intelligence and crisis and wartime decision making .
Some of the changes might include the whole issue of
deciding that a war has begun. It is not clear at this time
whether information warfare measures taken by a potential
adversary at the outset of a war would be readily detectable.
The question of how you know you are at war may be difficult
to resolve in view of the potential ambiguity associated with
information warfare .
Ambiguity and plausible denial are not new phenomena.
But the rapid growth of interconnections manifested already in
communications, banking, and other areas creates vulner-
abilities and presents opportunities to do grievous harm-
quickly, with no warning, and with a minimal "signature ."
Accordingly, the analysis of indications and warning that mark
the outset of warfare must change . To date, insufficient
thought has been applied to this aspect of the character of
future war.
In addition to its inherent ambiguity, information warfare in
2020 also portends a very different set of potential responses
by the United States to an adversary detected acting in a
hostile or potentially hostile fashion. The information warfare
measures that the United States could take might require
quite different policies with regard to rules of engagement than
have previously been contemplated .
This is both good news and bad news . The good news is that
there may be new tools, short of lethal attacks available to
signal an adversary that warfare with the United States would
be a bad idea. The bad news is the inherent ambiguity noted
above . In other words, it might be hard to signal our
intentions . In any case, the point is that much thought must
be given to the examination of threats, requirements for
intelligence, and rules of engagement.
81
Although countering an adversary's command and control

has always been a feature of warfare, the continental United
States has been somewhat invulnerable to such measures .
One clear implication of warfare in 2020 is that almost any
enemy will try to degrade our information system. The United
States must be prepared for that eventuality . Paradoxically,
although the technology of information systems is becoming
more capable and sophisticated, it is actually harder to secure
the US information infrastructure from attacks .
One potential vulnerability is the fact that information
warfare generates problems at the national level rather than
just for the Department of Defense. Therefore, such problems
will not be solved by creating new military organizations . The
problem goes beyond the armed forces to the entire national
security infrastructure . As the international information
infrastructure grows and elaborates, its reach expands beyond
the control of any single entity or any single nation.
Thus, the infrastructure is beyond the control of those who
use it, and has access points at a myriad of places for others
to enter the system. It is not at all clear, as a result, that
today's military organizational structure (e .g., the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, regional and supporting commanders-in-chief, and
military service departments) is the best way to manage the
complexities of information warfare as it might unfold in 2020 .
Another key organizational deficiency is the lack of a
coherent strategic approach to offensive and defensive
considerations for information warfare . Nowhere in our system
do we bring together and integrate the offensive and defensive
nature of information warfare . Nor is there a single locus for
requirements generation and staking claims in the acquisition
process for information warfare .
The Defense Information Security Agency (DISA) has been
actively pursuing "information assurance" as a part of the
charter to take responsibility for all DOD information systems .
However, DISA is not an operational command .
The question is, will we be able to plan for war in 2020 with
the view that communications channels will be available, with
little concern for the overall architecture or the nature and
characteristics of those channels? It seems clear that
information warfare in 2020 may require operators to have
82
more familiarity with how commands interact in order for

these operators to execute effectively strategy and operations .
There are examples of the problems we can anticipate if
such "information awareness" is not part of the force . The first
example concerns the logistics information systems, which are
both elaborate and critical to successful military operations.
Despite their criticality, these systems are generally subject to
less stringent security measures than other military systems .
The shortcoming does not involve just cryptologic security,
although that is an area that lags operational channels . We
could make the system cryptologically secure but still be quite
vulnerable. A potential enemy could significantly disrupt our
operations merely by denying us information-by simply
interfering with logistics transmission links.
A second example is the anticipated problems associated
with the presence of automated systems on the battlefield of
the future . These systems are likely to be considerably more
widespread in 2020 than they are today. The commander who
knows his "human" systems but who does not understand his
"automated" systems will be vulnerable to surprise-possibly
to defeat . Knowing the automated systems entails an
understanding of the software programming "rules."
There are already many autonomous systems available to the
commander to include unmanned air vehicles (UAVs),
unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), smart mines, and
Tomahawk cruise missiles, among others . The commander who
does not understand the details of his logistics information
system, or the programming of his autonomous systems, may
face a significant information warfare vulnerability in 2020.
In dealing with the information revolution that is affecting
the military today, the US military services seem to be engaged
in improving their current communication channels . That is,
they are striving to improve performance elements within the
current organizational structure . They have yet to address the
implications of systems and capabilities that do not fit within
the current structure. This is a fundamental issue . The
military traditionally has viewed information services, including
intelligence and communications, as supporting inputs to the
actual warfare functions of fire, maneuver, strike, and the like.
83
However, information warfare might not always be a

supporting function; it might take a leading role in future
campaigns . This makes it both more important and more
challenging to get the organizational issue right . By 2020, at
least in some militaries, the requirements of the battlefield will
be such that traditional hierarchical command and control
arrangements will be obsolete . In most organizations today,
the decentralization trend is already well established.
Information technology is making distributed systems
commonplace, and "virtual organizations" are growing like
cultures on a petri dish . The rapid rate of growth of these
types of new organizational entities would seem to suggest
strengths that the military would be wise to examine.
Dominating Maneuver
One of the more recently identified potential new warfare

areas is dominating maneuver. Maneuver has always been an
essential element in warfare, but the RMA potentially offers
the ability to conduct maneuver on a global scale, on a
much-compressed time scale, and with greatly reduced forces.
We define dominating maneuver as the positioning of forces-
integrated with precision strike, space warfare, and information
war operations-to attack decisive points, defeat the enemy
center of gravity, and accomplish campaign or war objectives .
While precision strike and information warfare are destroying
enemy assets and disrupting his situational awareness,
dominating maneuver will strike at the enemy center of gravity
to put him in an untenable position, leaving him with no choice
but to accept defeat or accede to the demands placed on him.
War is typically nonlinear, meaning that the smallest effects
can have unpredicted, disproportionate consequences. In
meteorology, nonlinearity is illustrated through the "butterfly
effect"-a butterfly flapping its wings in the southern hemi-
sphere can set off a string of reactions that eventually result in
a violent storm in the northern hemisphere .
In the early nineteenth century, Clausewitz made similar
observations when discussing the formulation of successful
strategy. He wrote that victory comes not through winning
battles or inflicting attrition but through attacking the enemy
84
center of gravity, which-depending on the situation-could be

his army, his capital, his leaders, or his principal ally. In the
course of the twentieth century, it appears that the complexity
of warfare has increased as military forces and their logistical
and political underpinnings have become more complicated .
With increasing complexity, the nonlinear nature of war is
likely to increase. Dominating maneuver seeks to exploit the
increasing complexity and nonlinearity in warfare by striking
directly at the enemy center of gravity in order to disrupt his
cohesion and cause his swift collapse.
Dominating maneuver is distinct from maneuver in several
ways . Maneuver refers to the "employment of forces on the
battlefield through movement in combination with fires, to
achieve a position of advantage with respect to the enemy in
order to accomplish the mission." 3
Dominating maneuver refers to the positioning of forces, not
necessarily their employment ; they can be positioned
anywhere in a theater, not necessarily on the battlefield . It
goes beyond "combination with fires" by integrating its effects
with the effects from precision strike, space warfare, and
information warfare . Its ultimate purpose is directly to achieve
campaign and war objectives, transcending the role of
ordinary maneuver.
Dominating maneuver does not require superiority at all
points in the battlespace or imply domination of the entire
maneuver. By 2020 our competitors could well challenge our
national interests in regions where they enjoy the advantage of
close proximity, and we may have neither a lengthy buildup
period to marshal our forces nor access to a continental
infrastructure to support our forces in the theater.
Under these circumstances, we will have to fight using the
continental United States as our principal base of operations,
making the maneuver battlespace orders of magnitude larger
than it was in Desert Storm . Dominating maneuver could
allow ground forces to operate successfully in situations where
they cannot dominate the entire battlespace . The concept has
a number of other implications for operations, organization,
and technologies as well.
First of all, dominating maneuver will require new operational
concepts that take into account the decisive importance of
85
time, making future maneuver more simultaneous than

sequential . It will be essential to attain operational and
strategic objectives through simultaneous information warfare,
space warfare, precision strike, and maneuvers against the
enemy's critical points rather than through a series of pitched
battles against enemy forces.
Further evolution of the Army's airland operations or the
Marine Corps's operational maneuver from the sea could lead
to such a concept . On the other hand, entirely new concepts
may be required.
The German invasion of Norway in April 1940 was a campaign
waged successfully in a way analogous to dominating
maneuver, although on a smaller scale . A single airborne
maneuver into Oslo on April 9, 1940, induced the surrender of
the city's garrison by creating the perception that their cause
was hopeless . Fighting continued on the fringes of Norway for
six weeks, but the airborne maneuver led directly to decisive
results . The maneuver gave the German commander a time
advantage during which he could reinforce faster than the
Norwegians could mobilize or the Allies could deploy .
Moreover, the surrender of the Oslo garrison precipitated the
capitulation of the Norwegian monarchy and forced the Allied
decision not to become heavily engaged on the Scandinavian
peninsula.
The Inchon landing during the Korean War was another
operation that illustrates the principles underlying dominating
maneuver. Gen Douglas MacArthur's plan to capture Seoul
through an amphibious landing at Inchon struck at one of the
critical vulnerabilities of the North Korean forces-their
dependence on the transportation bottleneck at Seoul . Instead
of gradually rolling the North Koreans back from Pusan,
MacArthur planned to cut them off and put them into an
extremely vulnerable position . The landing paralyzed the
already overstretched North Korean forces, and they broke into
disorganized fragments that retreated in disarray, incapable of
serious resistance.
To execute dominating maneuver in 2020, the United States
will have to develop new means for the movement of ground
forces . The development of forms of mobility not possessed by
the enemy could help generate maneuver dominance . More
86
advanced concepts for comparable forms of mobility also could

give a decisive advantage, as the Germans demonstrated in
May 1940. The Germans generated maneuver dominance on
the ground by employing combined-arms units that could
mass combat power quickly, supporting them with fast-
moving "aerial artillery" in the form of close air support,
stressing aggressiveness, developing a faster command and
control system to establish C2 dominance, and employing air
interdiction to degrade Allied mobility.
The revolutionary period that we are currently entering will
have its own forms of maneuver that will require new
technologies, new operational concepts, and new organizations .
Along with new forms of mobility, the United States will require
advances in logistical support to maintain the effectiveness of
forces engaged in dominating maneuver. The need to operate
far from existing bases, with little time for logistical buildups
and with insecure lines of communications, will compel
changes in the supply and support of ground forces.
The dangers of failure in this area are exemplified by the
German campaign in the Soviet Union in 1941 . In this
campaign, the Germans quickly established complete
maneuver dominance over the Soviets, whose decimated air
force and poorly organized ground forces could not stop the
Germans' fast-moving armored columns .
The Germans intended to use their maneuver dominance
first to attrit the Red Army and then to seize Moscow, whose
capture would sever the Soviets' transportation network and
paralyze their political apparatus . Despite their maneuver
dominance, the Germans failed-largely because of their
logistics, which were inadequate to the needs of supporting
far-flung advances over the vast distances of the Soviet Union.
Future attempts at dominating maneuver may similarly come
to grief as a result of shortcomings in logistics .
The dual imperatives of mobility and logistics may create the
need for smaller forces and new transportation technologies.
The current Strategic Mobility Study has as its objective the
intercontinental deployment of a heavy brigade in 15 days and
a heavy corps in 75 days. In the future, the United States may
require the ability to move a corps-equivalent force across the
oceans in seven days or less.
87
This capability might be achieved through the exploitation of

new transportation technology such as fast sea transports
capable of 100 knots or more, the national aerospace plane,
and supersonic transports ; through organizational changes
creating smaller units with useful combat power that could
deploy faster or be forward-deployed on naval platforms; or
through ways not yet conceived.
The organization and tactics of such ground forces are
difficult to visualize today. Some have suggested that twenty-
first century variants of the so-called Hutier tactic developed
by the Germans in World War I-Stingray or infestation tactics-
would be useful . Such tactics would combine deception and
bombardment with infiltration and attacks against strong
points . The ground forces may be a small number of Army
infantrymen, marines, or special operations forces, delivered
deep in enemy territory by air and equipped with
high-technology linkages to space-based or atmospheric strike
systems, in effect acting as part of a sensor-shooter network.
The United States may need new technologies if it employs
such tactics and seeks to maintain the lead that its forces
possess in close combat . As advanced sensors and
conventional weapons technologies proliferate and provide
greater stand-off ranges for enemy forces, the United States
should concentrate on achieving capabilities that will allow it
to leap ahead of these developments . We should begin now to
apply low-observability techniques to maneuver systems. We
need to develop advanced propulsion technologies to give our
maneuver systems greater speed, range, and agility. We also
need new means to enhance the lethality of our munitions and
the protective characteristics of our materials and systems .
Progress in these conceptual and technological areas will
enable maneuver to play a significant role in the RMA. It is
possible that precision strike and information warfare will
make maneuver unnecessary in certain situations or that
enemy progress in these areas will make maneuver difficult.
Nevertheless, maneuver will be essential against an enemy
unwilling to concede defeat unless the United States defeats
centers of gravity that cannot be attacked without maneuver
forces. Dominating maneuver may provide the coup de grace
in future wars, and in other situations may serve as the
88
enabler for war-winning space warfare, information war, or

precision strike operations.
Space Warfare
We define space warfare, the fourth future warfare area of

importance, as the exploitation of the space environment to
conduct full-spectrum, near-real-time, global military
operations . It includes facets of the other three warfare areas
but has the potential to become a qualitatively distinct warfare
area in its own right.
The US military's increasing reliance on support from
space-based systems for its everyday operations and especially
during times of conflict has highlighted the importance of
space operations. However, space assets could provide more
than support for the terrestrial war fighter in the future . The
space environment offers the possibility of conducting
worldwide military operations in a greatly reduced time frame .
The evolution of space operations is comparable to the
development of air warfare, which similarly exploited inherent
advantages in altitude and speed . Aircraft filled an essential
role in supporting the ground and naval forces in the First
World War through observation, antiobservation, ground
attack, and communications . Between the wars, larger aircraft
came into service in the form of civil and military transport, a
capability that was greatly expanded during World War II.
Moreover, between the world wars the United States and
Great Britain developed airpower as a means of leapfrogging
conventional ground and naval battles to enable direct strikes
on the enemy's ability to wage war. Although this theory of
strategic bombing met with limited success in the Second
World War, the concept culminated in the development of the
intercontinental nuclear deterrent after the Second World War.
Space operations, like air operations in the First World War,
currently provide support essential for the successful operations
of terrestrial forces. Satellites enable near-real-time, world
wide communications, sensing, timing, and navigation . These
capabilities, analogous to the roles of the observation balloons
and aircraft of the First World War, may make possible
89
dominant battlefield awareness and coordination of a global

precision strike architecture .
An effective antisatellite (ASAT) capability could lead to the
ability to achieve aerospace control or superiority in order to
deny an opponent the ability to operate in or from space . An
ASAT system would follow in the footsteps of the first fighter
aircraft that dueled for control of the air over the trenches of
the First World War and is a logical extension of the current
role of air superiority fighters and developing theater air
defense systems .
However, space operations will also greatly differ from air
operations . First, the "geography" of space is fundamentally
different from that of the earth's atmosphere . Orbital mechanics
require operating speeds (17,000 miles per hour) that far
surpass those currently achievable in the atmosphere .
Thus, if properly placed and employed, space assets could
perform missions in much less time than state-of-the-art
aircraft . One possible mission is to use space forces to project
power to directly achieve national objectives (operational or
strategic) in a particular theater . Space strike systems based
on satellites or on transatmospheric vehicles could enable
precision strikes whose quantitative advantage in speed would
result in a qualitative difference in capability .
Although currently limited, future capabilities in space
transport may also make possible the movement of critical
forces and equipment from CONUS to a theater in time frames
an order of magnitude faster than with current sea and air
transport . Thus, space operations may provide important
advantages in time-critical situations .
Further, the altitude advantages provided by space greatly
improve surveillance and reconnaissance coverage of the earth
and, as a result, could offer the means to command and
control operations in theaters where distance and terrain
complicate or confound terrestrially based systems .
Space, however, does have limiting factors that could
constrain its military use . First, space is not amenable to
human life, thus limiting the manned presence in future space
operations . As a result, most of the improvements in future
space operations will most likely come through unmanned
technologies. In addition, the speeds associated with space
90
flight and the amounts of fuel required to maneuver in orbit

using current technologies and energy sources greatly limit
the flexibility of spacecraft in orbit.
Therefore, sizable technical hurdles have to be overcome
before space-based strike, antisatellite systems, spacelift, and
space transport become militarily usable capabilities . Systems
that could enable future space operations might include
trans-atmospheric vehicles (TAVs), single-stage-to-orbit
(SSTO) launch vehicles, space-based directed-energy weapons
(DEW) or kinetic energy weapons (KEW), space-based ballistic
missile defense (BAD), satellite defense systems, small satellites,
and both space-based and ground-based distributed networks to
reduce the vulnerability of space capabilities .
However, new technologies such as new materials to reduce
weight, more heat-resistant and stress-resistant materials, and
sources of energy more powerful and efficient than chemical
reactions may be needed to make these systems truly effective .
Space warfare will likely become its own warfare area only
when there is need to conduct military operations in space to
obtain solely space-related goals (not missions that are
conducted to support earth-based operations) . For example, if
the United States becomes dependent on resources unique to
space (such as He3 on the moon), it may be forced to develop
technologies and operational concepts to support/defend
space-based industries, command and control nodes, or
colonies that are entirely non-earth dependent . In such
situations, space operations would be altogether removed from
any congruence with traditional air operations and would
undoubtedly become a distinct warfare area.
Implications : Dominant Battlespace Awareness
Though our understanding of the unfolding RMA and its

potentially new warfare areas is still evolving, several possible
implications have begun to come into focus. One of our
working hypotheses is that the truly revolutionary effects will
come from the combination of two or more new warfare areas .
For example, some combination of space and information
warfare may provide certain advantages heretofore impossible
to generate . As a result, the United States may be able to
91
achieve a degree of information dominance over an enemy by

both significantly degrading his information flow and
enhancing ours, thereby gaining a potential step-function
increase in our information capabilities .
The application of such a system of systems may generate
significantly greater capabilities in times of conflict . One
potential result may be the ability to generate dominant
battlespace awareness (DBA) over a particular enemy, in a
particular conflict. This awareness would not magically
provide perfect intelligence, but would allow the United States
to detect all observable phenomenology while limiting the
enemy's knowledge .
This information would translate into the ability to know
force locations and characteristics (including distinguishing
between targets and decoys and among target types) at all
times . Furthermore, the DBA architecture could include
mechanisms for disseminating this data directly to the
appropriate strike systems and conducting constant battle
damage assessments (BDA).
An advantage such as DBA would probably require a large
percentage of the total US sensing, analysis, and data trans-
mission assets. As a result, to generate dominant battlespace
awareness for a given conflict would require borrowing from both
national assets and those assets dedicated to other theaters.
In the collection arena, the constant monitoring required may
increasingly emphasize airborne and terrestrial sensors rather
than space-based platforms . We may well see stealthy
unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), flying at very high altitudes,
conducting a greater share of the collection duties than do
manned aircraft .
Advancements in information processing should enable
faster analysis of the data, while dissemination can be directly
linked to the shooters. Efficiency in military strike operations
should be enhanced by such an across-the-board
improvement in our reconnaissance-strike architecture.
Having established the possibility of generating DBA, what
might its implications be in a future conflict with a regional
competitor? The enemy's goal might be to achieve a break-
through quickly and push the US forces out of the country
before they could be reinforced. This would be especially true if
92
the enemy knew of our ability to generate DBA and feared the
consequences . The United States would presumably desire to
stop the attack as soon as possible, with as few losses as
possible. Roughly 24 hours of warning before the launch of a
standing-start attack would improve the prospect of the United
States generating battlespace awareness .
A capability such as DBA could affect both the systems the
United States fields and the operational concepts designed to
employ them in such a conflict . One likely implication may be
that a force with a greater number of long-range strike
systems, tied to DBA, would be far more lethal in attriting
enemy forces than would traditional forces. If the value of DBA
can be shared throughout the force, then the entire time line
of the conflict from locating targets, determining the best time
to strike them (e.g., when they are on the move), striking them,
and then assessing the success of the attack could eventually
become seamless . Thus, the efficiency of US precision strike
campaigns could increase substantially as current problems
such as prompt targeting, selection of the proper munitions,
reallocation of assets, and near-real-time BDA begin to dissipate.
On the other hand, a force designed to maximize the impact
of DBA might exacerbate some difficulties faced by today's
forces. First, the volume of targets made available through
DBA could simply overwhelm US strike capabilities . A force
heavily weighted toward long-range precision-strike weapons
may not completely overcome this problem but may still
provide an order-of-magnitude increase in the force's lethality .
Second, such a fire-intensive force will require a very large
inventory of munitions . Both of these problems, last seen in
the Gulf War, may not go away.
As noted above, dominant battlespace awareness may also
provide benefits that extend beyond simply increasing the
effectiveness of long-range strikes . For example, another force
structure implication of DBA may be the ability to truly do
more with less . If DBA can tell us where the main axis of
attack is coming, we may be able to use smaller forces to blunt
the attack because they will be covered more effectively by fire
support, and the commander will have the ability to commit
reserves precisely where and when they are needed. This could
lead to much improved loss/exchange ratios and the opportunity
93
to direct certain assets against other high-value targets much

earlier in a conflict .
Similarly, far lighter forces could also be used for dominating
maneuvers, either airmobile or amphibious, with the goal of
dislodging the enemy and allowing DBA-cued strikes to target
them more easily on the move . These maneuvers can also be
far less risky because the planners can select landing
objectives they know to be free of enemy forces . Finally, a
smaller force may be capable of exploiting a successful defense
with a counteroffensive far sooner than today because we
could identify the path of least resistance and focus our fire
support and commit our reserves more precisely and in a more
timely manner.
At the same time, we would have to recognize that there
would be several categories of targets where DBA would not
have a large impact . One example may be a country with large
inventories of nuclear, biological, or chemical (NBC) weapons .
Use of these weapons may take the form of limited chemical
attacks on ports and airbases or could even include nuclear
attacks against US forces. Almost certainly, DBA will not help
the United States gauge the enemy's intentions vis-a-vis NBC
use. Furthermore, the deep underground targets that typically
house NBC systems and infrastructure would be impossible
for DBA to penetrate .
Another potential area in which DBA's impact may be limited
is close battle . Even after a highly successful attrition campaign,
US forces may inevitably run into residual enemy forces on the
ground and the resulting battle may be too confined for
DBA-cued fires to be of much utility. Nevertheless, if the above
implications are borne out, DBA could allow the United States
to defeat an enemy quicker and with fewer losses than is
currently possible .
Conclusions
This description of the revolution in military affairs is

neither definitive nor conclusive . The discussion is intended
primarily to stimulate thinking-thinking in unique and more
meaningful ways about how warfare in the twenty-first
94
century may be fundamentally different than it is today and, of

equal importance, evaluating what we should be doing now to
prepare ourselves for that eventuality .
We expect that the true revolutionary impact of future changes
in the conduct of warfare will come from the intersection of
precision strike, information warfare, dominating maneuver,
and space warfare. Military operations in all four warfare areas
will be integrated into an overall operational plan that will be
decisive in terms of the course-if not the outcome-of the war.
Precision strike will hold an enemy at a distance and blind
and immobilize him by destroying operationally and
strategically crucial, time-urgent targets . Information warfare
will deny an enemy critical knowledge of his own-as well as
our-forces and turn his "fog of war" into a wall of ignorance .
Dominating maneuver will deploy the right forces at the right
time and place to cause the enemy's psychological collapse
and complete capitulation . Space warfare will enable the
United States to project force at dramatically increased speeds in
response to contingencies while denying the enemy the ability to
do the same. At least that is the overall concept. What we need to
do now is develop the details of how we can conduct such warfare
against various categories of competitors.
Figure 1 . Elements of the Present RMA
95
A number of changes must occur if the United States

military is going to compete successfully on the battlefields of
2020 . First, there must be a change in outlook-a change in
the way we think about preparing for the future. The military
must nurture an attitude that supports free thinking, that
accepts honest mistakes, that encourages experimentation, that
rewards risk takers, and that makes provisions for starting over.
As an organization, the military must break out of the box, must
consider alternative futures, must think the unthinkable, and
must let go of the conventional modes of operation .
Why are these changes so important? What may be the
consequences if we fail to change? First, failure to change will
ensure that we will not gain the most that we possibly could
from the unfolding RMA. Failure to change will make it
difficult for our military to make the best possible use of the
new emerging technologies.
Failure to think imaginatively about the future may result in
a failure to maintain the military advantages our forces so
clearly demonstrated during the Gulf War. Approaches that
are not innovative may prove adequate in the short term, but
in the long run they may squander potential advantages
needed against future competitors . We must alter our thinking
and our approaches to planning if we are to be prepared for
either the emergence of a large peer RMA competitor or the
surprise of a true niche competitor.
To be successful and lasting, the change must come from
the top-from leadership. The impetus for change must flow
through the entire organization, especially through the
education system . The required changes cannot occur without
the support and encouragement of leadership and the
enthusiasm and cooperation of the entire organization.
To be successful, we need to develop a broad strategy-a
strategy robust enough to encompass and cope with the
massive uncertainty we face. We need to be clear (if not always
explicit) about our goals, vis-a-vis our allies as well as our
competitors . We need to think through what we would like the
future to look like and develop a strategy for shaping it to that end.
None of this will be easy. But a concerted, sustained, and
focused effort by the Defense Department could pay dividends
in the decades to come in ways as yet unforeseen .
96
Notes
1 . Paul Bracken, "The Military After Next," Washington Quarterly, 16, no.
4 (Autumn 1993) 157-174.
2. Stephen Peter Rosen, Briefing on Future Competitors, US Army
Roundtable Conference on the Revolution in Military Affairs, HQ US Army
TRADOC, Fort Monroe, Virginia, 27 September 1993 .
3 . Department of Defense Directory of Military and Associated Terms,
1 December 1989, 218 . See also, JCS Pub 1-02.
Overview: Future Airpower
and Strategy Issues
Strategy is the art and science of translating national security

objectives into practical military plans and operations . Strategy
formulation in an age of revolution in affairs is especially
challenging . Our two strategy essays by two premier military
thinkers, Col John Warden and Col Richard Szafranski, debate
the issue of just how innovative strategy formulation must be in
the midst of a military revolution . Col Warden argues that "war
in the twenty-first century will be significantly different for the
United States from anything encountered before the Gulf War."
However, Col Szafranski contends that "there may not be really
much that is revolutionary in contemporary notions of parallel
war and hyperwar ."
Col Warden believes that twenty-first century strategy will
have to ensure great precision : high casualties will not be
politically tolerable; collateral damage must be minimized ;
nonlethal weapons will have wide application; and manipulation
of information will be critical . Strategy will have to concentrate
on an enemy's entire system of organization and activity, not
simply its armed forces .
Using the five-ring analogy, Col Warden proposes that strategy
should target an adversary's leadership, energy or resources,
infrastructure, population, and armed forces. This would make
airpower the dominant instrument of such new era warfare .
Simultaneously attacking these essential components rather
than concentrating solely on enemy armed forces is the essence
of Warden's strategy . Warden believes that the five-ring analysis
gives us a good picture of what to strike, and that we must view
"the enemy as a system, not an independent mass of tanks,
aircraft, or dope pushers ." Warden's goal is "to make the cost
political, economic, and military-to the enemy higher than he is
willing to pay, or to impose strategic or operational paralysis on
him so that he would become incapable of acting."
Col Szafranski, however, questions whether proposals like
Col Warden's aiming at the "simultaneous reduction of the
enemy systems overall energy level, so that the organic system
goes into shock" are really new. Is attacking the various centers
99
of gravity in "parallel" and with "hyper" speed really a new

theory of war? Szafranski argues that "simultaneous and
integrated attacks have long been the goal of combined arms.
Attacks on the leader and leadership are not new goals of
warfare, whether the enemy was viewed as a system, or not, in
the past." Col Szafranski adds that the nuclear attack single
integrated operations plan (SIOP), long used by the US Air Force
Strategic Air Command, "promoted and planned for parallel war
and hyperwar long before 'the five rings' came into vogue ."
While Col Warden's essay implies that the five-rings strategy
can work against very large states like China, or versus almost
any adversary, Col Szafranski limits its utility to smaller
industrialized states and is dubious regarding utility against
terrorist or insurgent organizations . "Worse," writes Szafranski,
"airpower cannot make the decisive and dominant contribution
to [counterterrorism and counter-insurgency] much to the
chagrin ofairpower advocates."
Col Warden was a key planner and organizer of the allied air
campaign that gave the Coalition air superiority over Saddam
Hussein's air force in the 1991 Gulf War. Parallel war and
hyperwar did shock and paralyze the Iraqi state and its
military forces . Warden's essay suggests that this same
parallel war and hyperwar approach, emphasizing airpower as
the key to rapid and complete victory, can and should be
applied in future conflicts in the twenty-first century .
However, Col Szafranski argues that this theory of fighting
wars, and the central role assigned to airpower in it, does not
apply to all kinds of conflicts . Szafranski contends that we still
have not found a theory of airpower and air strategy that
applies universally . Indeed, this leads to the question of
whether or not one air doctrine and military strategy for all
contingencies can be effective across the entire spectrum of
types of conflicts and types of adversaries that the United
States and its allies may confront in the future . Perhaps,
instead, there should be a search for multiple air doctrines for
various alternative types of conflicts and enemies .
The reader can decide for himself or herself what is new or
different in Col Warden's "air theory for the twenty-first century,"
and whether the same strategy will work across the spectrum
of conflicts . What both Col Warden and Col Szafranski do
100
FUTURE AIRPOWER AND STRATEGY ISSUES
agree on is that "paralyzing" or neutralizing an enemy's critical

warfighting assets-whether military or civilian, whether
physical or psychological-is important for strategy success in
twenty-first century warfare .
Chapter 4
Air Theory for the

Twenty-first Century
Col John A. Warden III, USAF
War in the twenty-first century will be significantly different

for the United States from anything encountered before the
Gulf War. American wars will be increasingly precise ;
imprecision will be too expensive physically and politically to
condone. Our political leaders and our citizenry will insist that
we hit only what we are shooting at and that we shoot the
right thing. Increased use of precision weapons will mean far
less dependence on the multitudes of people or machines
needed in the past to make up for inaccuracy in weapons.
Precision will come to suggest not only that a weapon strike
exactly where it is aimed, but also that the weapons be precise
in destroying or affecting only what is supposed to be affected .
Standoff and indirect-fire precision weapons will become
available to many others, which will make massing of large
numbers in the open suicidal and the safety of deploying
sea-based or land-based aircraft close to a combat arca
problematic.
We might hope that more accurate weapons would drive
potential enemy leaders to be less enamored of achieving their
political objectives with force ; if we are very lucky, perhaps the
world will move in this direction. Of at least equal likelihood,
however, states and other entities will turn to other forms of
warfare---such as attacks on enemy strategic centers of gravity.
These attacks may be via missiles, space, or unconventional
means, but all will recognize that they must achieve their
objective before the United States chooses to involve itself.
This, in turn, will increase the premium on American ability to
move within hours to any point on the globe without reliance
on en route bases .
The advent of nonlethal weapons technology will expand our
options over the full spectrum of war. These new weapons will
103
find application against communications, artillery, bridges,

and internal combustion engines, to name but a few potential
targets . And of greatest interest, they will accomplish their
ends without dependence on big explosions that destroy more
property than necessary and that cause unplanned human
casualties. Can these weapons replace traditional lethal tools? In
theory they can, as long as we accept the idea that war is fought
to make the enemy do your will. What we will surely find,
however, is that these weapons give us operational concepts and
opportunities well beyond what would be possible if we merely
substitute them for conventional weapons.
The United States can achieve virtually all military objectives
without recourse to weapons of mass destruction . Conversely,
other states, unable to afford the hyperwar arsenal now the
exclusive property of the United States, will at least
experiment with them. The challenge for America is to decide if
it wants to negate these weapons without replying or
preempting in kind . Accompanying this question is the
question of nuclear deterrence in a significantly changed
world . Although deterrence will certainly be greatly different
from our cold war conception of it, does it lose its utility in all
situations? How should US nuclear forces be maintained? This
entire matter deserves serious thought, soon.
Information will become a prominent, if not predominant,
part of war to the extent that whole wars may well revolve
around seizing or manipulating the enemy's datasphere . 1
Furthermore, it may be important in some instances to furnish
the enemy with accurate information . This concept is
discussed later in this chapter .
The world is currently experiencing what may be the most
revolutionary period in all of human existence with major
revolutions taking place simultaneously in geopolitics,
production, technology, and military affairs . The pace of
change is accelerating and shows no sign of letting up. If we
are to succeed in protecting our interests in this environment,
we must spend more time than ever in our past thinking about
war and developing new employment concepts . Attrition
warfare belongs to another age, and the days when wars could
be won by sheer bravery and perseverance are gone. Victory
will go to those who think through the problem and capitalize
104
AIR THEORY FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
on every tool available-regardless of its source . Let us begin

laying the intellectual framework for future air operations.
All military operations, including air operations, should be
consonant with the prevailing political and physical environ-
ment. In World War II the United States and her Allies imposed
widespread destruction and civilian casualties on Japan and
Germany; prior to the Gulf War, a new political climate meant
that a proposal to impose similar damage on Iraq would have
met overwhelming opposition from American and coalition
political leaders . As late as the Vietnam War the general
inaccuracy of weapons required large numbers of men to
expose themselves to hostile fire in order to launch enough
weapons to have some effect on the enemy; now, the new
physical reality of accurate weapons means that few men need
be or should be exposed.
Military operations must be conducted so as to give
reasonable probability of accomplishing desired political goals
at an acceptable price. Indeed, before one can develop or adopt
a concept of operations, an understanding of war and political
objectives is imperative.
For war to make any sense, it must be conducted for some
reason. The reason may not be very good or seem to make much
sense, but with remarkably few exceptions, most rulers who
have gone to war have done so with the objective of achieving
something-perhaps additional territory, a halt to offensive
enemy operations, avenging an insult, or forcing a religious
conversion . Very few have gone to war to amuse themselves with
no concern for the outcome or desire for anything other than the
opportunity to have a good donnybrook.
This is not to say, however, that all those who have gone to
war have done so with a clear idea of their objective and what
it would take to achieve it. Indeed, failure to define ends and
means clearly has led to innumerable disasters for attacker
and attacked alike. First rule : if you are going to war, know
why you are going. Corollary to the first rule: have some
understanding of what your enemy wants out of the war and
the price each of you is willing to pay. Remember: war is not
quintessentially about fighting and killing; rather, it is about
getting something that the opponent is not inclined to hand
over. Still another way to express this idea is this: war is all
105
about making your enemy do something you want him to do

when he doesn't want to do it-and then preventing him from
taking an alternative approach which you would also find
unacceptable .
There are a variety of ways to make an enemy do what you
want him to do. In simple terms, however, there are but three:
make it too expensive for the enemy to resist, with "expensive"
understood in political, economic, and military terms; physically
prevent an enemy from doing something by imposing strategic or
operational paralysis on him; or destroy him absolutely.
The last of these options is rare in history, difficult to execute,
fraught with moral concerns, and normally not very useful
because of all the unintended consequences it engenders. We
will pass over it and concentrate on the first two.
When we talk about making something so costly for an
enemy that he decides to accept our position, we are talking
about something very difficult to define or predict precisely .
After all, human organizations typically react in an infinite
number of ways to similar stimuli. The difficulty of defining or
predicting, however, does not suggest that it is a hopeless
task. Imprecise, yes ; hopeless, no.
We all know from our experience that we regularly make
decisions whether or not to do something . We don't go on a
trip if it costs more money than we are ready to pay; we don't
go mountain climbing if we fear the cost of falling ; and we
don't drive above the speed limit if the probability of a ticket
seems high, and so on. Enemies, whether they be states,
criminal organizations, or individuals, all do the same thing;
they almost always act or don't act based on some kind of
cost-benefit ratio . The enemy may not assess a situation the
way we do, and we may disagree with his assessment, but
assessments are part and parcel of every decision. From an
airpower standpoint, it is our job to determine what price
(negative or positive) it will take to induce an enemy to accept
our conditions . To do so, however, we need to understand how
our enemies are organized . One might object that understanding
how our enemies are organized is an impossible task, especially
if we don't know in advance who they are. Fortunately, this is
not the case ; as we shall see, every life-based system is
organized about the same way. Only the details vary.
106
Whether we are talking about an industrialized state, a drug

cartel, or an electric company, every organization follows the
same organizational scheme. This is very important to us as
military planners because it allows us to develop general
concepts not dependent on a specific enemy. Likewise, as we
understand how our enemies are organized, we can easily
move on to the concept of centers of gravity . Understanding
centers of gravity then allows us to make reasonable guesses
as to how to create costs which may lead the enemy to accept
our demands . If the enemy does not respond to imposed costs,
then this same understanding of organization and centers of
gravity shows us how to impose operational or strategic
paralysis on our enemy so, he becomes incapable of opposing
us. Let's start with the basics of organization (table 1) .
Table 1
SYSTEM ATTRIBUTES
Electric
Body State Drug Cartel Company
Leader Brain Government Leader Central Control

-eyes -communication -communication
-nerves -security -security
Organic Food/oxygen Energy Coca source Input (heat,

Essential -conversion via (electricity, oil, plus conversion hydro)
vital organs food), money Output
(electricity)
Infrastructure Vessels, bones, Roads, airfields, Roads, airways, Transmission

muscles factories sea lanes lines
Population Cells People Growers, Workers

distributors,
processors
Fighting Leukocytes Military, police, Street soldiers Repairmen

Mechanism firemen
As can be seen from the preceding table, a wide variety of

systems ranging from an individual to an electric company are
organized with remarkable similarity. This organizing scheme
is sufficiently widespread to make it an acceptable starting
place for working out most military or business problems . It
helps us put into effect injunctions from ancient Greek and
107
Chinese alike to "know thyself" and "thine enemy." In addition

to simplifying the "knowing" process, this organizational
scheme gives us an easy way to categorize information, which we
must do if we are to make real decisions. For practical purposes,
the world contains an infinite amount of information which by
definition cannot be totally correlated . Filters of some sort are a
necessity ; this systems approach provides an easy way to
categorize information and to understand the relative importance
of any particular bit.
Our primary interest is not in building a theory of organiza-
ion; rather, it is to derive an understanding of what we might
need to impose an intolerable cost or strategic or operational
paralysis on an enemy. To grasp the essence of this problem, it
helps to rearrange our table in the form of five rings (fig. 2) .
Rearranging the tabular information into the five rings
diagram gives us several key insights . First, it shows us that
we are dealing with an interdependent system . That is, each ring
has a relationship with all of the others and all play some role.
Seeing the enemy as a system gives us enormous advantages
over those who see him merely as an army or air force, or worse
yet, as some quantity of tanks or airplanes or ships or drug
pushers without ever understanding what it is that allows these
tanks or ships to operate and for what purpose .
Figure 2. System Model.
108
AIRTHEORY FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Second, it gives us some idea of the relative importance of

each entity contained within a given ring . For example, the head
of a drug cartel (the leadership ring) has the power to change the
cartel considerably whereas the street soldier (in the fielded
military forces ring) assigned the job of protecting a pusher in a
back alley can have virtually no effect on the cartel as a whole.
Third, it portrays rather graphically an ancient truth about
war: our objective is always to convince the enemy to do what
we want him to do. The person or entity with the power to
agree to change is the leader in the middle . Thus, directly or
indirectly, all of our energies in war should be focused on
changing the mind of the leadership.
Fourth, our rings clearly show that the military is a shield or
spear for the whole system, not the essence of the system .
Given a choice, even in something so simple as personal
combat, we certainly wouldn't make destruction of our enemy's
shield our end game. Contrary to Clausewitz, destruction of the
enemy military is not the essence of war, the essence of war is
convincing the enemy to accept your position, and fighting his
military forces is at best a means to an end and at worst a total
waste of time and energy.
Fifth, and last, the rings give us the concept of working from
the inside to the outside as opposed to the converse .
Understanding this concept is essential to taking a strategic
rather than a tactical approach to winning wars .
In using the rings to develop war ideas, it is imperative to
start with the largest identifiable system. That is, if the
immediate problem is reversing the effects of an invasion, one
would start the analysis with the largest possible look at the
system description of the invading country . An example : when
the Iraqis invaded Kuwait, Gen Norman Schwarzkopf quickly
grasped the idea that his problem was first with Iraq as a state
and only secondarily with Iraq's military forces within Kuwait
itself. At some point, however, we wanted to understand
details about Iraq's army in Kuwait. Not surprisingly, we found
that it was organized on the five-ring principle and insofar as
our objective with respect to that army was something other
than pure destruction, five-ring analysis gave us a good
picture of what to strike. Had we so desired, we could have
continued our analysis down to the level of an individual
109
soldier because he is organized about the same way as is his

country . From a diagraming standpoint, then, we start out
with the big picture of the strategic entity.2
When we want more information, we pull out subsystems
like electrical power under system essentials and show it as a
five-ring system . We may have to make several more five-ring
models to show successively lower electrical subsystems . We
continue the process until we have sufficient understanding
and information to act. Note that with this approach, we have
little need for the infinite amount of information theoretically
available on a strategic entity like a state . Instead, we can
identify very quickly what we don't know and concentrate our
information search on relevant data.
For the mathematically inclined, it will be clear that we are
describing a process of differentiation as opposed to integra-
tion. In a complex world, a top-down, differentiation approach
is a necessity . Important to note, however, is that virtually all
our military training (and business training) starts us at the
lowest possible level and asks us to work our way up. Thus,
we learn a tactical approach to the world. However, when we
want to think not about fighting wars but about winning them,
we must take a strategic and operational-or top-down-
approach if we are to succeed.
So far, we have not talked explicitly about centers of gravity,
but we have derived them by showing how we and our enemies
are organized . Centers of gravity are primarily organizational
concepts . Which ones are most important becomes clear when
we decide what effect we want to produce on the enemy in
order to induce him to accept our position. Which ones to
attack becomes a matter of our capability .
Let us review key concepts discussed to this point. First, the
object of war is to induce the enemy to do your bidding.
Second, it is the leadership of the enemy that decides to ac-
commodate you. Third, engagement of the enemy military may
be a means to an end, but the engagement is never an end in
itself and should be avoided under most circumstances .
Fourth, every life-form-based system is organized similarly: a
leadership function to direct it, a system-essential function to
convert energy from one form to another, an infrastructure to
tie it all together, a population to make it function, and a
defense system to protect it from attack . Fifth, the enemy is a

system, not an independent mass of tanks, aircraft, or dope
pushers . And sixth, the five rings provide a good method for
categorizing information and identifying centers of gravity.
We said earlier that our goal in war would generally be to
make the cost-political, economic, and military-to the
enemy higher than he was willing to pay or to impose strategic
or operational paralysis on him so that he would become
incapable of acting. Now, with an understanding of how enemies
are organized, we can begin the process of determining how to
accomplish either or both with airpower tools .
The object of war is to convince the enemy leadership to do
what you want it to do . The enemy leadership acts on some
cost/risk basis, but we can't know precisely what it might be .
We can, however, make some reasonable guesses based on
system and organization theory. To do this, put yourself in the
center of the five rings as the leader of a strategic entity like a
drug cartel or state. You have certain rather basic goals that
normally will take precedence over others. First, you want to
survive personally (this is not to say you won't die for your
system, but you probably see yourself and the system as being
closely tied together) . For you to survive personally (in most
instances) the system you lead must survive in something
reasonably close to its present form.
Let us say that you are the leader of a drug cartel and an
enemy threatens you credibly with the following (to which you
cannot respond) : your bank accounts will be zeroed, your
communications with the world outside your mountain retreat
will be severed, your cocaine processing facility will be
destroyed, and your house will be converted to rubble. To
avoid these nasty things, all you have to do is agree to stop
selling cocaine in one country . What do you do? If you are
remotely rational, you agree immediately . Failure to do so
means your system effectively ceases to exist, which leaves
you personally in a precarious position and unable even to
retire in splendor because you can't get at the billions you had
socked away in a country with strict privacy in banking laws .
Suppose that only some of these dire events were threatened
or deemed likely . In this case, you might choose to negotiate.
Perhaps you would agree to sell less cocaine in the target
country . Perhaps you would agree to a moratorium on sales.

Your enemy might or might not accept these counterproposals ;
it would depend largely on how much he was willing to spend
to create a cost for you . In our ideal world we like to think we
don't negotiate with drug dealers or tyrants like Saddam
Hussein. In the real world we do so all the time. Very rarely
are we willing to invest the time and effort required to achieve
maximal results.
Our discussion of costs has so far been oriented at a
strategic level . Does it also apply at an operational level-the
level at which military forces are actually employed? The
answer is an absolute yes . Military commanders, with the
exception of a few really stupid ones, have always weighed
costs as they were planning or conducting an operation . Let's
take a hypothetical look at George Patton and the Third Army
in World War II.
George Patton was an aggressive commander who believed
that speed of advance was key to success . Obviously, then, the
Third Army needed to move quickly as a system-not just the
tanks, but the whole system that supported them at the front.
From the German side, if moving fast was good from George
Patton's perspective, it was bad from theirs . Now, let us do a
quick five-ring analysis of the Third Army from just the cost
standpoint . (We will return to it later when we discuss
operational paralysis.)
Let us suppose that something catastrophic happened to
Third Army's fuel supply in mid-September of 1944 . Let us
assume that someone tells General Patton at a staff meeting
that all fuel deliveries to his Army will cease in two days. His
choices are basically two: slow down or stop the movement of
his army so that it can assume a reasonable defensive
position, or tell everyone to plunge ahead as far as possible
until they run out of gas. Since the latter is likely to leave the
majority of the army in an untenable and unplanned position
and is unlikely to achieve anything final, Patton opts for the
former because he has assessed the cost of continuing as too
high for the possible results.
Realize also that unbeknownst to the commanding general,
every subordinate commander and soldier will start acting on
information about an impending fuel shortage as soon as he
AIR THEORY FORTHE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
hears about it. The effect is obvious ; by the time the formal
order to halt comes down, forward movement already would
have ceased and hoarding of remaining fuel supplies would
have become widespread. The principle is simple : at all levels,
leaders make decisions based on a cost/benefit analysis .
Before moving on to discuss imposition of strategic and
operational paralysis, we need to make two more points on the
subject of cost . The first is that the enemy leader may not
recognize how much attacks on him are costing at the time of
attack and in the future. This almost certainly was the case with
Saddam Hussein, who simply failed to comprehend for several
weeks what the strategic air attacks against him were doing to
his future . Had he understood, he might have sued for peace the
first morning of the war. His lack of understanding flowed from
ignorance of the effect of modern air attack3 and from lack of
information. The coalition attack in the first minutes had so
disrupted communications at strategic levels that it was very
difficult to receive and process damage reports.4
A similar event may have taken place in Japan in late 1944
and into 1945. Japanese army leaders persisted in their desire
to continue the war even though their homeland was
collapsing around them as a result of strategic air and sea
attacks . They apparently lacked the in-depth understanding of
war and their country to appreciate what was really
happening. Like Saddam a half-century later, the Japanese
were stuck in a paradigm that said that the only important
operations in war were the clashes of armies . In the Japanese
case part of the problem may have stemmed from the Bushido
code of personal bravery that tended to assume that success
in war would be a function of agglomerating many tactical
successes. The concepts of strategic and operational war were
simply not there.
Two lessons flow from these examples : you may have to
educate the enemy on the effect your operations are likely to
have. You may also have to give him accurate information on the
extent of his losses-and the long-term and short-term effects
likely toflow from them
As we have seen, we cannot depend on the his making the
concessions we ask because of a realistic cost/benefit analysis.
In the event we cannot educate and inform him properly, we
must be ready to consider imposition of strategic and operational

paralysis . Fortunately, the effort we put into understanding
how enemies are organized and how to impose costs leads us
directly into the concepts and mechanisms of paralysis .
The idea of paralysis is quite simple . If the enemy is seen as
a system, we need to identify those parts of the system which
we can affect in such a way as to prevent the system from
doing something we don't want it to do. The best place to start
is normally at the center for if we can prevent the system's
leadership from gathering, processing, and using information
we don't want him to have, we have effectively paralyzed the
system at a strategic level .
Let us go back to the drug cartel example we earlier dis-

cussed . Suppose that the suppliers and pushers hear nothing
from headquarters for some period of time. Their finances
begin to dry up, nobody protects them from competitors, and
their stocks dwindle quickly. What do they do? They begin to
look for other cartels to deal with or for other lines of work. In
a short period of time, but not instantly, the paralysis imposed
at the strategic level of the cartel destroys the organization's
ability to sell the drugs its opposition didn't want it to sell-all
while the overwhelming majority of the individuals in the
organization are unharmed and not even directly threatened .
The obvious place to induce strategic system paralysis is at the
leadership, or brain, level. What happens, however, if the brain
cannot be located or attacked? Although the leadership function
always provides the most lucrative place to induce paralysis, it is
not the only possibility. Suppose that we can't reach the drug lord,
but we can reach and destroy one of his system essentials, such
as his financial net? We are likely to have created a different level
of paralysis . The organization may still be able to function, and it
will certainly search furiously to repair or replace its financial net.
If it doesn't succeed, however, this paralysis in one part of the
strategic system is likely to cause much of the rest to atrophy and
become ineffective . After all, the majority of the organization's
suppliers and workers must eat and must pay for services
rendered. If they are not getting regular pay, they are going to be
forced again to find alternatives outside the organization that can
no longer provide them with a system essential .
At a big-state level, one can imagine a similar outcome if the

state loses a system essential like electricity . Imagine the effect
on the United States if all of its electricity stops functioning .
Let us return to our George Patton and Third Army example
to look at operational paralysis . Patton depended on speed for
success, but not unfocused speed . He needed to know where
he was going, what his troops were going to encounter, where
to send the fuel and ammunition, and where to shift land and
air forces as required. Suppose the Germans had succeeded in
blinding Patton by depriving him of his ability to gather and
disseminate information . Under these conditions, Third Army
would have been effectively paralyzed insofar as its ability to
conduct rapid offensives simply because offensives on the
ground at any speed are extraordinarily complex and require
huge amounts of good information .
If the Germans were unable to blind Patton, what else could
they have done to induce operational paralysis? Again, going
from the center of the rings toward the outside suggests we
should look next in the system-essential (or supply) ring for an
answer. Most assuredly, Patton's speed depended on fuel for
his tanks and trucks-no fuel, no speed. Thus, elimination of
fuel, perhaps by interdicting the Red Ball Express, induces the
desired form of operational paralysis and converts Third Army
into something different . Before its fuel was cut off, Third
Army was a fast moving, dangerous threat to the Germans;
after the fuel stops, it becomes a slow, slogging beast signifi-
cantly different in nature and threat .
So far we have discussed effects we might want to produce
on the enemy: untenable costs or paralysis at one or more
levels . Next, we must look at how we go about doing it. Before
proceeding, however, it is useful to note that we have used
quite a few pages talking about air theory and have yet to
discuss bombs, missiles, or bullets . The reason is simple; well
before it makes any sense to talk about mechanics, it is
imperative to decide what effect you want to produce on the
enemy . Making this decision is the toughest intellectual
challenge ; once the desired effect is decided, figuring out how
to attain it is much easier if for no other reason than we
practice the necessary tactical events every day, whereas we
rarely (far too rarely) think about strategic and operational
problems . Let us propose a very simple rule for how to go

about producing the effect : do it very fast.
It may seem facetious to reduce the "how" to such a simple
rule, and, indeed, we will now make it a little more complex by
talking about parallel attack. Nevertheless, the essence of
success in future war will certainly be to make everything
happen you want to happen in a very short period of
time-instantly if possible . Why? And what is parallel war?
Parallel war brings so many parts of the enemy system
under near-simultaneous attack that the system simply
cannot react to defend or to repair itself. It is like the death of
a thousand cuts ; any individual cut is unlikely to be serious . A
hundred, however, start to slow a body considerably, and a
thousand are fatal because the body cannot deal with that
many assaults on it. Our best example of parallel war to date
is the strategic attack on Iraq in the Gulf War. Within a matter
of minutes the coalition, attacked over a hundred key targets
across Iraq's entire strategic depth . In an instant, important
functions in all of Iraq stopped working very well . Phone
service fell precipitously, lights went out, air defense centers
stopped controlling subordinate units, and key leadership
offices and personnel were destroyed. To put Iraq's dilemma in
perspective, the coalition struck three times as many targets
in Iraq in the first 24 hours as Eighth Air Force hit in Germany
in all of 19431
The bombing offensive against Germany (until the very end)
was a serial operation, as virtually all military operations have
been since the dawn of history. Operations have been serial
because communications made concentration of men
imperative, the inaccuracy of weapons meant that a great
number had to be employed to have an effect, and the
difficulty of movement essentially restricted operations to one
or two locations. In addition, military operations have mostly
been conducted against the enemy's military, not against his
entire strategic or operational system . All this meant that war
was a matter of action and reaction, of culminating points, of
regrouping, of reforming. Essentially, war was an effort by one
side to break through a defensive line with serial attacks or it
was an attempt to prevent breakthrough .
In any event the majority of the enemy system lay in relative

safety through most of a conflict with the fighting and damage
confined largely to the front itself. Even when aerial bombardment
began to reach strategic depths, the bombardment tended to be
serial (again because of inaccurate weapons and the need to
concentrate attacking forces so they could penetrate an aerial
defensive line). This meant that the enemy could gather his
defenders in one or two places and that he could concentrate the
entire system's repair assets on the one or two places which may
have suffered some damage. Not so in Iraq.
In Iraq, a country about the same size as prewar Germany,
so many key facilities suffered so much damage so quickly
that it was simply not possible to make strategically
meaningful repair. Nor was it possible or very useful to
concentrate defenses ; successful defense of one target merely
meant that one out of over a hundred didn't get hit at that
particular time . As in the thousand cuts analogy, it just
doesn't matter very much if some of the cuts are deflected . It is
important to note that Iraq was a very tough country
strategically. Iraq had spent an enormous amount of money
and energy on giving itself lots of protection and redundancy
and its efforts would have paid off well if it had been attacked
serially as it had every right to anticipate it would. In other
words, the parallel attack against Iraq was against what may
well have been the country best prepared in all the world for
attack . If it worked there, it will probably work elsewhere.
Executing parallel attack is a subject for another essay or even
a book. Suffice it to say here that those things brought under
attack must be carefully selected to achieve the desired effect.
We have now provided the groundwork for a theory of air

power to use into the twenty-first century . To summarize :
understand the political and technological environment ; identify
political objectives ; determine how you want to induce the enemy
to do your will (imposed cost, paralysis, or destruction) ; use the
five-ring systems analysis to get sufficient information on the
enemy to make possible identification of appropriate centers of
gravity; and attack the right targets in parallel as quickly as
possible . To make all this a little more understandable, it is
useful to finish by mentioning the Gulf War's key strategic and
operational lessons, which look as though they will be useful

for the next quarter-century or more .
We can identify 10 concepts that summarize the revolution
of the Gulf War and that must be taken into account as we
develop new force levels and strategy:
1 . The importance of strategic attack and the fragility of

states at the strategic level of war
2 . Fatal consequences of losing strategic air superiority
3 . The overwhelming effects of parallel warfare
4. The value of precision weapons
5 . The fragility of surface forces at the operational level of war
6 . Fatal consequence of losing operational air superiority
7 . The redefinition of mass and surprise by stealth and
precision
8 . The viability of "air occupation"
9 . The dominance of airpower
10 . The importance of information at the strategic and
operational levels
Let us look at each of these briefly.
1 . The importance of strategic attack and the fragility of

states at the strategic level of war. Countries are inverted
pyramids that rest precariously on their strategic innards-their
leadership, communications, key production, infrastructure,
and population. If a country is paralyzed strategically, it is
defeated and cannot sustain its fielded forces though they be
fully intact.
2 . Fatal consequences of losing strategic air superiority .
When a state loses its ability to protect itself from air attack, it
is at the mercy of its enemy, and only the enemy's compassion
or exhaustion can save it. The first reason for government is to
protect the citizenry and its property. When a state can no
longer do so, it has lost its reason for being. When a state loses
strategic air superiority and has no reasonable hope of
regaining it quickly, it should sue for peace as quickly as
possible. From an offensive standpoint, winning strategic air
superiority is the number one priority of the commander ; once
that is accomplished, everything else is a just a matter of time.
3. The overwhelming effects of parallel warfare. Strategic

organizations, including states, have a small number of vital
targets at the strategic level-in the neighborhood of a few
hundred with an average of perhaps 10 aimpoints per vital
target. These targets tend to be small, very expensive, have few
backups, and are hard to repair . If a significant percentage of
them are struck in parallel, the damage becomes insuperable .
Contrast parallel attack with serial attack where only one or
two targets come under attack in a given day (or longer) . The
enemy can alleviate the effects of serial attack by dispersal
over time, increasing the defenses of targets that are likely to
be attacked, concentrating his resources to repair damage to
single targets, and conducting counteroffensives . Parallel
attack deprives him of the ability to respond effectively, and
the greater the percentage of targets hit in a single blow, the
more nearly impossible is response .
4. The value of precision weapons. Precision weapons allow
the economical destruction of virtually all targets-especially
strategic and operational targets that are difficult to move or
conceal . They change the nature of war from one of probability to
one of certainty. Wars for millennia have been probability events
in which each side launched huge quantities of projectiles (and
men) at one another in the hope that enough of the projectiles
(and men) would kill enough of the other side to induce retreat or
surrender . Probability warfare was chancy at best. It was
unpredictable, full of surprises, hard to quantify, and governed
by accident. Precision weapons have changed all that. In the
Gulf War, we knew with near certainty that a single weapon
would destroy its target. War moved into the predictable .
With precision weapons, even logistics become simple ;
destruction of the Iraqis at the strategic, operational, and
tactical levels required that about 12,000 aimpoints be hit.
Thus, no longer is it necessary to move a near-infinite quantity
of munitions so that some tiny percentage might hit something
important . Since the Iraqi army was the largest fielded since
the Chinese in the Korean War and since we know that all
countries look about the same at the strategic and operational
levels, we can forecast in advance how many precision weapons
will be needed to defeat an enemy-assuming of course that
we are confident about getting the weapons to their targets.
5. The fragility of surface forces at the operational level of

war. Supporting significant numbers of surface forces (air, land,
or sea) is a tough administrative problem even in peacetime.
Success depends upon efficient distribution of information, fuel,
food, and ammunition. By necessity, efficient distribution
depends on an inverted pyramid of distribution . Supplies of all
operational commodities must be accumulated in one or two
locations, then parceled out to two or four locations, and so on
until they eventually reach the user. The nodes in the system are
exceptionally vulnerable to precision attack . As an example,
consider what the effect would have been of a single air raid a
day-even with nonprecision weapons-on the WWII Red Ball
Express or on the buildup behind VII and XVIII Corps in the Gulf
War. The Red Ball Express became internally unsustainable,
and the VII and XVIII Corps buildups severely strained the
resources of the entire US Army-even in the absence of any
enemy attacks .
Logistics and administration dominate surface warfare, and
neither is easy to defend . In the past these activities took place
so far behind the lines that they were reasonably secure. Such
is no longer the case-which brings into serious question any
form of warfare that requires huge logistics and administrative
buildup .
6. Fatal consequence of losing operational air superiority.
Functioning at the operational level is difficult even without enemy
interference . If the enemy attains operational air superiority (and
exploits it)5 and can roam at will above indispensable operational
functions like supply, communications, and movement, success is
not possible . As with the loss of strategic air superiority, loss of
operational air superiority spells doom and should prompt quick
measures to retreatwhich is likely to be very costly-or to
arrange for surrender terms.
7. The redefinition of mass and surprise by stealth and
precision. For the first time in the history of warfare, a single
entity can produce its own mass and surprise. It is this single
entity that makes parallel warfare possible. Surprise has always
been one of the most important factors in war-perhaps even the
single most important, because it could make up for large
deficiencies in numbers . Surprise was always difficult to
achieve because it conflicted with the concepts of mass and
120
concentration . In order to have enough forces available to hurl

enough projectiles to win the probability contest, a commander
had to assemble and move large numbers . Of course,
assembling and moving large forces in secret was quite difficult,
even in the days before aerial reconnaissance, so the odds on
surprising the enemy were small indeed. Stealth and precision
have solved both sides of the problem; by definition, stealth
achieves surprise, and precision means that a single weapon
accomplishes what thousands were unlikely to accomplish in
the past.
8. The viability of "air occupation." Countries conform to the
will of their enemies when the penalty for not conforming
exceeds the cost of conforming. Cost can be imposed on a state
by paralyzing or destroying its strategic and operational base or
by actual occupation of enemy territory. In the past, occupation
(in the rare instances when it was needed or possible) was
accomplished by ground forces-because there was no good
substitute. Today, the concept of "air occupation" is a reality and
in many cases it will suffice. The Iraqis conformed with UN
demands as much as or more than the French did with German
demands when occupied by millions of Germans . Ground
occupation, however, is indicated when the intent is to colonize
or otherwise appropriate the enemy's homeland .
9. The dominance of airpower. Airpower (fixed wing,
helicopter, cruise missile, satellite), if not checked, will destroy
an enemy's strategic and operational target bases-which are
very vulnerable and very difficult to make less vulnerable . It
can also destroy most tactical targets if necessary.
10. The importance of information at the strategic and
operational levels. In the Gulf War, the coalition deprived Iraq of
most of its ability to gather and use information. At the same
time, the coalition managed its own information requirements
acceptably, even though it was organized in the same way
Frederick the Great had organized himself. Clear for the future is
the requirement to redesign our organizations so they are built
to exploit modern information-handling equipment. This also
means flattening organizations, eliminating most middle
management, pushing decision making to very low levels, and
forming worldwide neural networks to capitalize on the ability of
units in and out of the direct conflict area.
The information lesson from the Gulf was negative; the

coalition succeeded in breaking Iraq's ability to process
information but failed to fill the void by providing Iraqis an
alternate source of information .6 This failure made Saddam's job
much easier and greatly reduced the chance of his overthrow.
Capturing and exploiting the datasphere may well be the most
important effort in many future wars .
Beyond these Gulf War lessons, which have applicability
well into the future, it behooves the air planner to think of one
other area: what can be done with airpower that in the past we
knew could only be done with ground or sea power or couldn't
be done at all? The question must be addressed for several
reasons: airpower has the ability to reach a conflict area faster
and cheaper than other forms of power ; employment of air power
typically puts far fewer people at risk than any other form (in the
Gulf War, there were rarely more than a few hundred airmen in
the air as opposed to the tens of thousands of soldiers and
sailors in the direct combat areas) ; and it may provide the only
way for the United States to participate at acceptable political
risk (use of airpower does not require physical presence on the
ground) . Let us look at just one example .
Suppose a large city is under the control of roving gangs of
soldiers, and it is American policy to restore some degree of order
to the city. Normally, we would think that could only be done by
putting our own soldiers on the ground . But what if policyrnakers
are unwilling to accept the political and physical risks attendant
to doing so? Do we do nothing, or do we look for innovative
solutions?
If we define the problem as one of preventing groups of soldiers
from wandering around a city, we may be able to solve it from the
air. Can we not put a combination of AC-130s and helicopters in
the air equipped with searchlights, loudspeakers, rubber bullets,
entangling chemical nets, and other paraphernalia? When groups
are spotted, they first receive a warning to disperse . If they don't
they find themselves under attack by nonlethal, but unpleasant,
weapons. If these don't work, lethal force is at hand. It may be very
difficult to prevent an individual from skulking around a city or
even robbing an occasional bank. Single individuals, however,
constitute a relatively small tactical problem since they are
unlikely to be able to cause wide-scale disruption as can multiple
122
groups. The latter problem is serious but manageable; the former

is a police matter.
By the same token, we know that we will be called on to
conduct humanitarian and peacemaking operations . If we
think about food delivery as the same as bomb delivery and
understand that with food, as with bombs, our responsibility
is to distribute it to the right people, we should be able to do
as well with food as we do with bombs. To do so, however, will
require putting as much effort into developing precision
food-delivery techniques as we put into developing precision
bomb or cluster-bomb capabilities . The problem is the same and
is theoretically susceptible to an airpower solution if we are
willing to think outside the lines. And indeed, thinking outside
the lines will be a necessity if airpower is to prosper and to play a
key role in defending American interests well into the next
century.
Indeed, there is a new world building around us and the
revolutions in politics, business, and war have happened and we
must deal with them, not ignore them. Of course, it is human
nature to stay with the old ways of doing business even when the
external world has made the old ways obsolete or even
dangerous . So many examples come so easily to mind: the heavy
knights at Agincourt refusing to believe that they were being
destroyed by peasants with bows; the French in World War I
exulting the doctrine of "cold steel" against the machine gun and
barbed wire as the flower of a generation perished; and the steel
and auto makers of the United States convinced that their
foreign competitors were inept even as their market positions
plummeted. Accepting the changes made manifest in the Gulf
War will be equally difficult for the United States but by no
means impossible, ifwe all resolve to think.
Notes
1 . A term introduced by Don Simmons in Hyperton (New York: Bantam

Books, 1990).
2. A strategic entity is any self-contained system that has the general
ability to set its own goals and the wherewithal to carry them out . A state is
normally a strategic entity as is a drug cartel or a guerrilla organization .
3. Saddam made the following statement shortly after his successful
invasion of Kuwait. "The United States depends on its Air Force and
everyone knows that no one ever won a war from the air ." Thus, his
123
preconceived notion (shared by many military officers around the world)

made it difficult for him to analyze what was happening to him .
4. As an aside, the planners had recognized that Saddam would not be
able to gather information, so they had intended to provide him accurate
reports of all attacks by using psychological warfare assets . For a number of
reasons, the planners were unable to make this happen; as a result,
Saddam lacked information that the coalition really wanted him to have .
5 . Some would argue that the mujahideen in Afghanistan lost
operational air superiority and yet still prevailed. The latter is true ; the
former is not, because the Stinger antiaircraft missiles forced the Soviets to
operate at an altitude that deprived them of the ability to hit anything. The
Soviets simply did not have the precision weaponry and detection capability
the United States had in the Gulf War .
6. The coalition provided Iraqi soldiers at the front great quantities of
information and did so effectively; the same thing did not happen at the
strategic level inside Iraq for a variety of not very good reasons .
Chapter 5
Parallel War and Hyperwar:

Is Every Want a Weakness?
Col Richard Szafranski, USAF
Something happened in Desert Storm never witnessed

before . Air power-in thousands and thousands of Coalition
sorties-appeared to have defeated an enemy. Advocates of air
power earnestly want others to accept what they believe Desert
Storm proved . Desert Storm proved, they assert, that air power
can be or is dominant and decisive,' fulfilling the vision of
Gulio Douhet, Billy Mitchell, Jimmy Doolittle,2 and others3-or
so advocates believe and want us to believe .
That want may be a weakness. This essay examines the
notions of parallel war and hyperwar, principally as they apply
to air campaigns, revealing minor flaws in the ideas and their
application . First, it examines parallel war to determine what
is new in the idea. Second, it examines this "new" kind of air
warfare to illuminate the strengths and shortcomings parallel
war evidences in theory and practice. Third, it argues that the
theory is useful if applied against weak industrial states. Next,
it postulates theoretical ways to defeat an adversary intending
to employ parallel war. Defeating parallel war is possible
whether the United States is the nation intending to employ it,
or whether some post-Gulf War aficionado embraces the
theory. None of this intends to do any more than add greater
discernment to the theory of parallel war and hyperwar .
Theories of parallel warfare are not "bad" or "wrong." Rather,
their shortcoming is that they have only limited utility in the
emerging world .
Copyright 1995, Us Naval Institute. Reprinted with permission . An edited version

appears in the August 1995 issue of Proceedings (vol . 121, no. 8) . "Is every want a
weakness?" is a Zen Buddist reflection .
125
But, What If . . .?
Even so, one caveat remains : if parallel war is the new air
warfare form, it would be a valuable one indeed . If authentic
parallel war were possible, it would, as its advocates argue,
render much of Clausewitz irrelevant. Clausewitz himself
noted that
if war consisted of one decisive act, or a set of simultaneous
decisions, preparations would tend toward totality, for no
omission could ever be rectified. . . .
But, of course, if all the means available were, or could be,
simultaneously employed, all wars would automatically be
confined to a single decisive act or a set of simultaneous
ones-the reason being that any adverse decision must reduce
the sum of the means available, and if aU had been committed in
the first act there could really be no question of a second . Any
subsequent military operation would virtually be part of the
first-in other words, merely an extension of it. 4
Three "ifs," with three "coulds" and two "woulds" in tandem,

suggest skepticism . Since everything pivots on "if," the ideas
bear close examination .
What Is Parallel War?
The idea of parallel war arises from understanding the

enemy as a "system" or "organism," simultaneously more
complicated and less complicated than the people-state-armed
forces system described by Clausewitz . 5 The enemy state
theoretically has five key organic components : (1) fielded
military forces at the periphery ; (2) the masses of the people
who are not direct combatants ; (3) a transportation
infrastructure providing organic essentials ; (4) the organic
essentials themselves ; and, (5) residing at the center,
leadership or a controlling mechanism for the entire system .
Advocates refer to these orbits or concentric "rings" as "the five
rings." 6 Like a fractal, each of the rings also has within it the
five components . Thus, the fielded forces at the periphery,
from the army to the individual soldier, have within them
leadership or some internal controlling mechanism .
126
PARALLEL WAR AND HYPERWAR
In this taxonomy, the entire system and each ring has

within it key nodes or "centers of gravity."7 Leadership, the
controlling mechanism, is the key node in each ring and
throughout. The theory is that simultaneous and coordinated
operations against all the key nodes in the system and in each
of the rings are the essence of the a new kind of offensive
military air campaign. Air, the theory holds, is the superior
medium for prosecuting these operations . It is air power, the
theorists argue, that allows attacks against the internal rings
and all the other rings without first collapsing the outer rings
that surround the inner ones.$
In contrast, serial warfare is, or was, warfare that engaged
each ring and its categories of targets in turn, ad seriatim,
moving from the periphery toward the center.9 In the past it
was not possible to attack the sovereign in the castle until the
opposing army had defeated the enemy monarchs fielded
forces and moved through the population toward the center. In
World War II, air attempted to engage its targets in parallel,
but more often engaged its air targets and target sets serially
within the organic whole of Germany, giving ball-bearing
factories, submarine pens, petroleum, airfields, rail and road
networks, and cities some priority for air attack at any given
time. Parallel war, on the other hand, theoretically employs air
power to attack all the decisive points in each ring and the
decisive point of the entire system simultaneously. The object
is not just the destruction of targets. Destruction is the means
to an end. The object is to destroy or damage (or to render
dysfunctional) those targets that produce a strategic effect by
causing loss of the enemy system's organic capabilities .lo
When these parallel warfare attacks occur with simultaneity or
great speed, hyperwar results.
In a later iteration of the theory, and as information wars i
becomes an intriguing notion within the services and the
Department of Defense, information becomes the "bolt"
running through all the rings and holding the rings together. 12
John Warden, the leading theorist, also asserts that whatever
else "weapons" may be or do, they are essentially "information"
because they communicate "messages," or "meaning ." Thus,
air power delivers "information" to the enemy leadership . The
most important information delivered in this ethereal sense is
127
the message "stop fighting," or "your strategy has been defeated

and you are paralyzed," or, in the extreme case, "you are dying."
Death or paralysis of the systems military or warfighting
capability is the objective and intended effect of the air
campaign. The goal is to visit the cumulative "death of a
thousand cuts" on the enemy system . 13 Because the object
sought is paralysis, parallel war and hyperwar aim at the
sudden and simultaneous reduction of the enemy systems
overall "energy level," so that the organic system goes into
"shock." The simultaneous engagement of centers of gravity
prevents recovery from this shock because the energy
available to the system is inadequate to restore the system to
full functioning. Thus, attacks against the centers of gravity
must occur not only in parallel, but also with "hyper" speed .
Since ground forces cannot do this, since forces afloat cannot
do this (except through their air power), then air forces are the
forces best suited for employing parallel war at hyperwar
tempo. Or so the theory goes .
What is New Here?
According to Jeffrey R. Cooper, what might be new is a way

of fighting, enabled by technology, that could evidence both
coherence and simultaneity . Cooper writes:
At the operational level, the impact of these coherent operations
is to overwhelm the opponent's ability to command and control
his forces, denying him the ability to respond to our campaign
plan and operations, and forcing him at the limit to execute only
uncoordinated preplanned actions .
The attacks themselves are

a (massively) parallel series of synchronized integrated operations
conducted at high-tempo, with high lethality and high mobility,
throughout the depth and extent of the theater, intended to force
the rapid collapse of both the enemy's military power and the
enemy's will.
The consequence of the attacks is rapid defeat of the enemy

force
128
due to the simultaneous parallel operations, the high mobility,

the high lethality, and the capability for sustained high tempos of
operations, so many enemy units can be defeated in detail
simultaneously that the operation may resemble a more classic
coup de main executed in a single main-force engagement . 14
But is this a new theory? Military forces since Clausewitz

have been enjoined to identify and engage the "center of
gravity" of an enemy's military capability . Simultaneous and
integrated attacks have long been the goal of combined arms.
Attacks on the leader and leadership are not new goals of
warfare, whether the enemy was viewed as a system or not in
the past. Even in chess, not a new game, it is possible to
impose checkmate without the serial destruction of all the
adversary's knights, rooks, and pawns. Nor is it novel that
such a campaign theory would be advanced by airpower
advocates. What the air aspects of the theory promise seem to
differ little from what Douhet, Mitchell, and the faculty of the
Air Corps Tactical School promised . Air power, we have always
been told-even promised-by air power advocates, will be
decisive . That the United States Strategic Bombing Survey and
The Gulf War Airpower Survey both used empirical data to
show that some of the undertakings of airpower fell short of
the vision of airpower cannot be ignored . 15
Nor should anyone ignore that the idea that parallel warfare,
as distinguishable from serial warfare, is not a new strategic
conception . As early as 1951, a naval officer, Capt. (later Rear
Adm) J. C. Wylie, asserted that there were two types of strategy :
"sequential" and "cumulative ." He described the cumulative
approach in an article that appeared in Proceedings in 1952 .
Wylie later wrote that
there are actually two very different kinds of strategies that may
be used in war . One is the sequential, the series of visible,
discrete steps, each dependent on the one that preceded it. The
other is the cumulative, the less perceptible minute
accumulation of little items piling one on top of the other until at
some unknown point the mass of accumulated actions may be
large enough to be critical . They are not incompatible strategies,
they are not mutually exclusive. Quite the opposite . In practice
they are usually interdependent in their strategic result . 16
Moreover, the architects of the nuclear single integrated

operations plan (SIOP), like Wylie, promoted and planned for
129
instant cumulative war, or parallel war and hyperwar, decades

before current theorists articulated "the five rings ." As
Desmond Ball has shown, SIOP nuclear weapons were
allocated against target sets in the former Soviet system
characterized as "leadership" (leadership), "nuclear force"
(nuclear forces), "economic and industrial" (organic essentials
and logistics infrastructure), and "other military" (other fielded
forces). 17 The, SIOP also evidenced coherence and simultaneity,
using Cooper's terms. Thus, there is scant difference between
the targeting logic of the SIOP approach and the targeting logic
of the five-rings approach, save for the important distinction
that one employed nuclear weapons effects and the other did
not, but might have . 18 While the difference between the
nuclear SIOP and parallel war waged with conventional
weapons is critically important, there are more similarities
between the theories than differences . Both approaches
sought to strike decisive points, both sought to checkmate
enemy leadership, both were executed simultaneously and
with hyper speed, 19 both aimed at driving down enemy "energy
levels" dramatically, both sought to impose shock and
paralysis on the enemy system, and both sought to eliminate
rapid (or almost "any," in the case of the SIOP) enemy
post-attack recovery capability .2° Nuclear weapons use does
make a difference . The SIOP intended to be so threatening that
it also may have been self-deterring . Parallel warfare using
nonnuclear appears no less threatening in terms of its
immediate consequences, but has fewer constraints on its
employment . Even so, the difference in weapons is not a
difference in the theory qua. theory nor in the proximate effects
the SIOP and nonnuclear parallel war sought. 21
Strengths and Shortcomings
The strength of cumulative strategies, both the SIOP and

parallel war, even though they are the same theory, is that
they promise to reduce more rapidly the war-making capacity
of an industrialized enemy state . 22 It is indisputable that
industrial states may be organized as the kind of system
represented . The logic of a cumulative model appears sound,
130
albeit somewhat mechanical, in the case of the five rings, and

there are lucrative targets for air attack throughout the enemy
system. The air campaign in Desert Storm demonstrated that
the combat power of Iraq or a state like Iraq can be reduced by
apparently simultaneous and coherent attacks against
important targets . The SIOP, had it been executed, would
likely also have proven the point against a more robust
belligerent and war-fighting system . 23 Conventional weapons
have the additional advantage of being easier to employ and
having fewer constraints on their employment than nuclear
weapons. Unconventional weapons have the added advantage,
in some cases, of producing effects that can be reversed . Thus,
the ability to prosecute these kinds of nonnuclear attacks,
using SIOP targeting logic under a new name, is a valuable
adjunct to warfare in the latter years of the "second wave." 24
While a cumulative strategy promises to be effective against
any enemy, one difficulty with the five-rings model is that it is ill
equipped for coping with organisms that are not industrialized or
industrializing state systems . Certainly a terrorist organization is
a "system" that has separate component parts. Of course an
insurgent organization is a "system" that has differentiated
component parts. While theoretically possible to differentiate the
component parts of both terrorist systems and insurgent
organizations, it is not always easy actually to identify or to
isolate these parts. As physical entities, the component parts, or
five rings of terrorist and insurgent organization are exceedingly
difficult for the air campaign planner to target. Thus, the model
holds, but becomes exquisitely irrelevant for these types of
organizations and counterterrorism warfare and counter-
insurgency warfare . Worse, airpower cannot make the decisive
and dominant contribution to these kinds of fights, much to the
chagrin of airpower advocates . Fighting in the former Yugoslavia,
the ill-starred intervention in Somalia, and our impotence in
stopping the genocide in Rwanda are only the more recent
examples of the limits of airpower. Airpower, it would seem,
works best in massive doses applied as an antidote against the
strength of industrial or industrializing states, uniformed armed
forces, and identifiable leaders and other targets .
The five-rings model thus becomes illogical or at least
impractical for nontrinitarian warfare, or what Gen John Boyd
calls "irregular warfare." Nontrinitarian warfare, as described

by Martin van Creveld, is warfare wherein the warring sides do
not manifest the organization of Clausewitz's remarkable
"trinity" of state, people, and armed forces. If, as John Keegan,
Carl Builder, Martin van Creveld and others suggest,
conventional war between industrial states is the less likely
warfare form for the future,25 this need not invalidate the
theory entirely . The model remains extremely useful for its
heuristic value to novitiate students of warfare and as a thesis
to stimulate antithesis and debate.
Nontrinitarian warfare is only one of the challenges with
which the theory cannot contend. Some of the characteristics
of warfare on the eve of the "third wave" also confound the
theory: demassification, diversity, and ninjitsu. Demassification
is the fractionating of large conventional targets into much
smaller ones. For example, mainframe computers are an
attractive and easy-to-target set of nodes. Distributed laptops
are less attractive targets because they are simultaneously
more numerous, less easy to locate, mobile, and less easy to
target. "Third-wave" information technology liberates leader-
ship and leadership command centers from the requirement to
reside in fixed locations. Just as telecommuting is possible for
nonwarfare "knowledge workers" today, it is not inconceivable
that the leaders of warfare operations in the future can
command these operations from their domiciles, from
nonbelligerent states, or from offshore . As hierarchies yield to
networks, leadership will also become demassified. "Virtual"
presence makes distance command and control possible.
Thus, even among warring states, the leaders need not reside
in the states to direct the fighting.
Miniaturization combines with demassification to complicate
the challenge. A satellite dish receiver that measures three to five
meters in diameter is an easy target for precision-guided or even
area weapons . A satellite receiver or transmitter that measures
one-half meter in diameter is a more difficult target to strike,
especially if thousands are employed in a distributed network.
While the model may be valid, the targeting challenge is such
that the model might as well be invalid since it has little utility.
Dual-use technologies and facilities also confound the five-
rings campaign planner. Fermentation chambers, for example,
132
are essential components of a system that brews beer. These

same fermenters are also essential for the production of
biological weapons . Beer is good. Biological weapons are not
good. Dual-use systems do not fit easily into the targeting
template . Information technology is ubiquitous and much of it
serves multiple constituencies. The Global Positioning System
(GPS) would be a lucrative target, but the constellation of
these satellites is demassified and distributed . Moreover, GPS
users are military and civilian . Thus, the consequences of
attacking GPS must be borne by friendly forces, enemy forces,
and neutrals. Most communications satellites pose the same
type of problem for campaign planners . Demassification,
miniaturization, and dual-use also make ninjitsu-the "art of
invisibility"-possible . By distributing important elements of a
system, reducing them dramatically in size, embedding them
in other things (religious facilities, civilian hospitals, university
research centers), these elements effectively become invisible
to the campaign planner . 26
There are at least seven additional minor problems . First, the
attacks may not actually occur simultaneously, except when
compared to warfare of the distant past. Next, like the SIOP, the
current model strives for the "decisive battle" in new form. Third,
it neglects evolution in the attacked organism or system . Fourth,
it pays insufficient attention to war-termination issues . Fifth, the
current model neglects the reality of the challenges posed by the
post-attack damage assessment architecture, the Air Tasking
Order (ATO) system, and the reality of combined arms
operations. Sixth, the assertion that "information is the bolt that
holds the rings together" seems to give the lie to the entire
theory . And last, in the world that is emerging, there may be
little room for this type of air campaign . Each of these lesser
challenges deserves a few words.
The simultaneous attacks celebrated by the five-rings
theorists in the Gulf War did not occur simultaneously . They
occurred sequentially and over time . For airpower to be
effective, air superiority, or control of the air, is necessary . To
achieve air superiority, enemy air defenses must be defeated,
circumvented, or suppressed . Thus, and even though the
initial onslaught may have attacked other targets in other
categories, elimination or reduction of the capabilities of the
133
enemy's air defenses always must be the first priority of an air

campaign. 27 If the theorists and air campaigners assert that
suppression of enemy air defenses was not their first priority
in time and in space, that assertion appears to contradict
current air doctrine . If they accept that coping with enemy air
defense capability was the first priority, but reply that the first
wave of attacks included other targets, then the attacks were
not simultaneous, but merely very close in time . (Zeno
probably would argue that any separation in time, however,
constitutes serial warfare.) In truth, the opening salvos of the
Desert Storm air campaign were directed-as they must be for
air power to be effective-against the enemy air defense
system, the "crucial first step" in the air campaign . 28
Sea-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles and Army Apache
helicopters were part of this first wave of atrpower attacks for
airpower's benefit. How quickly other targets in the series
followed, becomes less relevant to the theory. A compressed
serial attack is still serial warfare, even though time
compression may create the appearance and, more important,
the effect of sirrlultaneity . 29
Because the five-rings model for air campaign planning
asserts that the consequence of its attacks will be paralysis of
the enemy system, it in effect asserts that the Napoleonic and
Clausewitzian "decisive battle" is its aim. Moreover, it seeks to
annihilate enemy capability. 3o (It does this, by the way, even
while some of its advocates suggest that their theories now
might have rendered much or most of Clausewitz irrelevant.) If
the aim of the air campaign is not achieved-that is, if the
consequent is not affirmed-then the fault must reside not in
the air campaign, but somewhere else.31 Dogmatic adherence
to the air campaign plan list of priority targets is necessary to
"prove" the theory. Close air support, the theory holds, is less
important than strategic attack . If sorties have to be
reapportioned because of some "ground emergency," then the
dogma has been violated and, of course, the opportunity to
win a decisive battle may have then been lost. Where the
targeting list is followed religiously, failure to achieve a
decisive battle can also be attributed to inadequate
intelligence . Or it could be bad weather, the bane of aviation.
Or it could be caused by an adaptive enemy.
134
The reality is that organisms are autopoietic ; that is, they

struggle to preserve themselves . 32 Any attacked organism can be
expected to struggle for survival by responding and adapting to
stimuli, to internal changes, and to its new environment. Rigid
adherence to an air campaign plan specifying a series of parallel
attacks in advance is rigid adherence to a set of attacks designed
against the initial organism, not the evolved one . The danger
with a wonderfully deterministic air campaign plan is that it may
adapt poorly to an organism that evolves in unexpected ways .
When flying weather impedes mechanical execution of the air
campaign plan, allowing the enemy respite and the opportunity
to recover, it is the fault of chaos. When mobile missiles are
introduced in unexpected ways, it is the fault of intelligence.
When operations against mobile missiles deplete sorties
intended to achieve the decisive victory of the air campaign, it is
the fault of the politicians . Airpower advocates did in fact argue
that the Iraqi Scuds were not militarily significant. 33 That the
missiles might have rent the Gulf War Coalition asunder had
they not been actively pursued and engaged shows an immature
understanding of what constitutes "military" significance in state
warfare . Mobile missiles ought to have been priority targets in
the air campaign : as political weapons they might have altered
the course and outcome of the war.
War termination issues, not neglected in the SIOP, also
appear to be neglected in the five-rings approach . The posited
aim of the air campaign is strategic paralysis-the expectation
being that "paralysis" must somehow equate to "surrender ."
The reality is somewhat different . Wars may end because the
losers sense that there is something they value more than the
object of the war and that continuing the war imperils
preservation of this more important value or preference set. 34
The five-rings model attacks everything but population
centers, perhaps encouraging the enemy to fight to the death.
Even simple attacks can then have unintended consequences.
Attacks against communications designed to separate
leadership from fielded forces, for example, may also deprive
leadership of feedback regarding damage to the organism .
Thus, the organism may neither realize its paralysis nor
behave as a paralytic . Certainly, if attacks annihilate a large
part of the enemy's capability, defeat in detail is then possible,
135
whether the enemy fights on or not-that is, if public opinion

on the winning side supports the bloodletting required to
defeat an enemy in detail . None should, of course,
underestimate the ruthlessness of a United States forced to
fight for its vital interests. It would be equally foolhardy to
underestimate the power of public opinion in fights not
perceived by our citizens as involving their vital interests.
The five-rings approach may work well against a weak
enemy and a transparent target set. If the enemy-the
resistant element described by Clausewitz-is not weak or
stupid, or if the target set is characterized by attention to
ninjitsu, problems arise for the air campaign planner. Prewar
intelligence, very effective damage assessment, and close
coordination are all required to make the ATO system function
effectively . (Where the ATO is less effective and the fault
cannot be attributed to "intelligence," it is, we are told by
some, the fault of the Army and the Marines . 35) The ATO takes
a long time to produce .36 This fact alone ensures that it directs
attacks against an organism that no longer exists. If damage
assessment is imperfect-normally imperfection is the status
quo unless the weather is perfect, intelligence is precise and
abundant, and the enemy is perfectly inept or stupid-the
problems are compounded . That Saddam was not stupid,
albeit an excessively bold risk-taker (and even though Gen H .
Norman Schwarzkopf reviled him as a strategist), is shown by
his pawns gambit on the border of Kuwait in 1994. Perhaps
the Gulf War educated him.
If the Gulf War educated us, we should now appreciate that
warfare is a poor laboratory for validating air-only, or
naval-only, or ground-only theories .37 Warfare against a small
and inferior state is an even poorer laboratory. We fight with
combined arms and depend on their interaction, their
combined effects, to defeat the enemy's strategy. An enemy
facing a 400,000 or a one-half million person allied army on its
border will invariably behave differently than one only facing
air attacks, no matter how wonderful the pounding to which
air subjects that enemy. It may be as divisive as it is
short-sighted to resign forces in other media to the null set
when attempting to use an actual fight with a third-, fourth-,
or tenth-rate opponent to illustrate or prove a theory.
136
Airpower-Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and other

nation airpower-was powerful in Desert Storm. Of that there
can be no doubt. But was it powerful because Iraq was so
inferior? Was airpower powerful alone, or was it powerful
because of the force-the well-armed, well-trained, belligerent
and hot-blooded human beings-poised to take the fight to
Baghdad on land and from the sea? Would not have true
parallel war, horizontal and vertical parallel war, brought the
interactive power of land warfare and amphibious assault to
bear on Iraq even as the air campaign unfolded? Has our
desire for few casualties become yet another weakness; a
weakness leading us away from sound strategy?38
This last question is an important one when examining
the air campaign's quest for parallel war. Wars occur and
warfare occurs within a much broader context than the
battlespace . Will the strategic context of the future-the
entire social, political, economic, and military gamut of goals,
interests, and behaviors-tolerate the kind of Desert Storm air
campaign advocated? Parallel war is and has been a
wonderful theory. Yet, the move from theory to practice is both
a torturous and tortuous one. Preparedness to execute the
SIOP, for example, cost the United States trillions of dollars
over decades . Preparedness to execute a Desert Storm-type air
campaign against any but small and weaker states might
require an equivalent investment . Would such warfare work
against a large country? Against a peer? Will the United States
ever again have the surplus resources it had in Desert Storm?
Not likely, seems to be the answer.
Iraq was and is a small country . When proportional
silhouettes of Iraq are superimposed over a larger nation, as
they are in Figure 3, the aerial achievements of Desert Storm
appear in a different light. This is not to suggest any
adversarial relationship with or hostile designs against China.
Rather, this perspective merely illuminates the fact that Iraq is
a very small country .
Finally, if information is "the bolt that holds the five rings
together," then information is the decisive center of gravity.
Accordingly, should we not aim all attacks at information?
Even though our understanding of information operations or
information warfare is imperfect and immature, the evolving
13 7
CHINA & IRAQ

COMPARATIVE
SIZES
MILES 1,000
DR ARMIN LUDWIG, AIR WAR COLLEGE, 1995
Figure 3. China and Iraq-Comparative Sizes
theory demands that the connectivity between and within the

rings becomes the object of attack . Electrical power production
facilities, roads and rails, airfields, missile production installa-
tions, and government buildings are not difficult for the air
campaigner to target. Information is, or would be, difficult to
target. Inclusion of information as a lucrative target may be a
trendy afterthought on the part of airpower advocates on the one
hand . On the other hand, it may be creation of another
precondition for success of the air campaign . The precondition, if
not met, then becomes the fault not of the theory, but of
prehostility target intelligence or the clumsy execution of a
brilliant air campaign plan.
138
Defeating Parallel War
Perhaps the more valuable contribution the five-rings model

makes to the study of warfare is that it elucidates how one can
falsify or defeat the theory . The first priority, the best way to
defeat an adversary, Sun Tzu tells us, is to defeat an adversary's
strategy . Air campaigners do not appear to be strategists . More
likely they are air tacticians-their protestations to the contrary
notwithstanding . If the five rings support the overall strategy or
constitute the strategy of the air campaign, how can one defeat
the strategy? There are at least five ways, with each one examined
in turn. (Recall, please, that this discourse aims at theory and
antithesis . In practice, some of these countervailing means are
as risky as they are illegal . Even so, we would do well to keep in
mind that our conceptions of risk and legality may be ours alone.
There are antithetical notions out there in the real world.)
" Disguise, diversify, and demassify the system. Force the air
campaign planner and the air campaigner to strike what
appear to be widely distributed and primarily civilian
targets . The center of gravity of United States armed
forces may be public opinion . If public opinion is the
Clausewitzian hub upon which all movement depends in
most democratic states, attacking this hub is both a
prewar and wartime priority. To defeat parallel war even
before it commences, a wise adversary will strive to
disguise, diversify, and "demassify" key elements of the
system so that total war is necessary . Such a cunning
adversary will have mobile systems wherever possible.
Where mobility is not possible, the adversary will embed
military activities in civilian ones. Weapons production will
occur in facilities producing civilian goods . Weapons
research activities will be collocated in hospitals,
universities, and religious centers. Command and control
transmitters and receivers will be placed on schools, hotels,
temples, and recreational facilities. Airfields will be joint
commercial-military facilities, routinely used by
commercial and military entities . Dual-use systems-
telecommunications media, fiber optics, direct broadcast
and very small aperture satellites-will be used for
administrative military communications. An adversary
139
might build tanks in automobile factories, ballistic

missiles in refrigerator factories, might commingle
military and civilian transport, and could build its
military garrisons in populous areas. The adversary
would also be wise to move from military leadership
hierarchies to military leadership networks . Where
possible, the enemy will put foreign contractors in all
militarily significant facilities . The adversary will
encourage engagement, enlargement, tourism, and
foreign investment . The adversary's objective is to up
the ante for the attacker by forcing him to war on the
innocents and against the investors . The wise adversary
will attack and defeat its opponent's strategy even
before declaration of a state of hostilities .
" Acquire weapons of mass destruction (WMD) on mobile
systems . WMD so raise the risks and consequences of an
attack that mere possession of WMD and mobile delivery
systems may impose prewar paralysis on the attacker. To
defeat parallel war, the adversary will distribute WMD
among the innocents with the same impunity that other
military capability is commingled. Nuclear weapons
production facilities may have bold, bright signatures .
Chemical and biological weapons production facilities do
not. Since those may be the WMD of choice in the third
wave, an adversary intending to defeat parallel war will
acquire them. Acquisition of any deliverable WMD
changes the political and military calculus dramatically .
" Where immobile, be invisible . One of the best ways to
create invisibility is to go underground; the deeper, the
better. Lateral is better than merely vertical . A cunning
adversary will realize that whatever is the key node in
the underground facility should also reside beneath a
civilian facility. Schools, orphanages, and "baby milk"
factories may have high utility for concealing these kinds
of basements . Distinctive painting or marking,
source-identifiable military communications, and even
uniforms do not contribute to invisibility . The obvious
and key point is that whatever cannot be identified cannot
be targeted . An astute adversary will also capitalize on the
attackers cultural myopia and mirror-imaging.
140
" When attacked, mutate. Defeating parallel war also

requires planning how the organism will adapt, transform
itself, and recover, if attacked. The adversary intent on
defeating parallel war will anticipate a reduction in energy
levels after an attack. Even so, the adversary also will
realize that a planned mutation at the bifurcation point is
superior to a random one. Especially cunnin g adversaries
will choose an asymmetrical and unpredictable response
to attacks, not a symmetrical or predictable one. If, for
example, electrical power production comes under
intense attack, the adversary might respond by
intentionally shutting down all visible electrical power.
(One cannot be especially cunning without having
considered and prepared for this in advance .) This
unexpected mutation makes damage assessment difficult.
The air campaign planner may cope with this difficulty by
forcing an extensive search for corroboration that attacks
have achieved required damage expectancies, may fall
into the trap of wishful thinking and reallocate sorties
to other roles, or-and this is the likely case-may
mindlessly continue to adhere to the installation-driven
or target-driven air campaign plan. Another useful
mutation might be to withdraw uniformed fielded
forces and employ terrorists or special operations forces
in the attacker's homeland .
" Attack information . The five rings exist in peacetime as
well as in wartime . If information is indeed the bolt that
holds them together, an adversary will realize that attacks
should begin in the prehostility phase. The object of
preliminary attacks in the prehostility phase will be to
paralyze or destroy a target set called "any public opinion
that does not support my aims." Combining propaganda
with more active measures, such as assassination and
other kinds of terrorism, may prevent a weak-willed
attacker from taking the offensive. (On the other hand,
active measures might stimulate uncharacteristically
ferocious responses.) Failing the success of propaganda
and anticipating an attack, an adversary may turn to
"worms" and "viruses" as its swords . As one communica-
tions analyst has noted:
Computer "hackers" have relatively easy access to software

programs called "worms" and "viruses ." A worm is used to delete
a portion of a target computer's memory, and the aptly named
virus calls forth a machine's files and copies itself onto them,
creating an unfixable mess. Database records can be (and have
been) altered by outside interference, just as broadcasting
airwaves have been intercepted and preempted . Even on a small
budget, it seems, where there is a will there is a way. 39
As Brigadier V . K. Nair, VSM (Retired), wrote in his book War

In The Gulf. Lessons for the Third World:
Active measures to degrade attacking electronic systems should
be cost effective and simple . For example, the most sophisticated
system such as that of the United States, could be totally
disrupted by the projection of a suitable virus that would
automatically find their [sic] way back into the computers on
which the systems are dependent . Cheap, simple and effective
avenues must be exploited on a priority. 4o
Thus, it is only a matter of technique and time before these

countermeasures to parallel war are employed . What are the
counter-countermeasures? There may be none, although
information technology may provide the homeopathy of future
warfare .41 In the quest for primacy in warfare, the pendulum
will continue to swing between measures and countermeasures .
The elusive search for the technologies, the weapons, and the
concepts of operations and organization that allow
Vemichtungschlacht likely will continue .
Conclusions
There may not really be much that is revolutionary in

contemporary notions of parallel war and hyperwar . It is the
logical evolution of a nonnuclear SIOP accelerated in serial
applications . The ability to execute a nonnuclear SIOP against
a large state or peer would require SIOP-level investments.
After acquiring the capability, an adversary could checkmate it
by simple tactical adjustments modulating the strategic
environment. Dispersing and disguising targets and making
the public opinion consequences of striking them unacceptable
cause the more obvious of these modulations . Absent the
powerful real or imagined survival motives that impelled the
142
SIOP, it is unlikely that the United States or any other nation

will acquire the kind of airpower required to satisfy the needs
of the parallel war and hyperwar air campaign . Absent the
acquisition of the required technologies, the theory remains a
rather large and important footnote to the Gulf War.
A problem with contemporary air campaign theories may be
the progressive detachment of these presumptive airpower
theories-presumptive from the realities of warfare .42 The new
theories seem to be less about warfare than they are about the
ways in which some believe the battlespace ought to be
apportioned and the resources that ought to be acquired once
the roles of force elements are determined . Warfare is about
human beings, human aspirations, and human passions . No
one should thoughtfully relegate the study of warfare to the
investigation of sterile technology and the targets that reside
in precisely defined systems or rings . Warfare between
humans is a hot thing, not a cold thing. It is more about blood,
fear, surprise, and friction than it is about technology .
Precision targeting depends on speed and certainty, including
the assurance that humans can know and understand causal
relationships . Parallel war theorists require the ready
availability of the technologies that allow speed, precision, and
the chimera of accurate knowledge and authentic
understanding . Parallel war requires massive resource
investments. 43
Thus, airpower in this current formulation seems to have
become no more nor less than the power of detached, dispas-
sionate technology .44 Technology is applied science. The science
of the parallel war theorists is cold, deterministic, and-from the
perspective of those who value jointness or integration-
misapplied. "If this, then that" is a supposition that warfare
rarely substantiates . The hubris of contemporary airpower
theorists may be that they so badly want airpower to be
dominant or decisive that they have made the Desert Storm
air campaign the mechanistic template for all future wars .
This want is a potentially dangerous weakness. Airpower, as
Carl Builder suggests in The Icarus Syndrome, still lacks a
theory .45 Even so, one must applaud those who search for
one, even while cautioning them that they may not have
found one yet .
143
Notes
1 . Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, The Generals War: The

Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf(Boston : Little, Brown and Co., 1994) ;
and John A. Warden III, "Air Theory for the Twenty-first Century," in Karl P.
Magyar, ed., Challenge and Response: Anticipating US Military Security
Concerns (Maxwell AFB, Ala . : Air University Press, 1994), 326-329 . Warden
asserts that one of the ten concepts that describe "the revolution of the Gulf
War and must be taken into account "as we develop new force levels" is 'The
dominance of airpower ." Some disagree regarding airpower's contribution in
the Gulf War. See Robert H. Scales, Certain Victory (Washington, D.C.: US
Government Printing Office, 1993) .
2 . "The function of the Army and the Navy in any future war will be to
support the dominant air arm ." See James H . Doolittle, speech to the
Georgetown University Alumni Association, 30 April 1949, cited in Robert D.
Heinl, Jr., Dictionary of Military and Naval Quotations (Annapolis: United
States Naval Institute, 1966), 6.
3 . Airpower advocates believe airpower was both dominant and decisive
in the Gulf War . In the wake of the war, the principal architect of the Desert
Storm air campaign plan, Col John A. Warden III, emerged as the lead
airpower theorist in the United States Air Force . His prewar book, 77ie Air
Campaign: Planning for Combat, is pirated, translated, and studied abroad .
The Swedish Air Force uses his theories as the model for the most stressful
kind of air attack against which they must be prepared to defend . In
Australia, Warden is ranked along with Douhet and Trenchard as an
important air theorist . Colonel Warden is a former commandant of the Air
Command and Staff College, Air University.
4. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans . by Michael Howard and
Peter Paret (Princeton : Princeton University Press, 1976), bk. one, chap. 1,
79. Emphasis in original.
5. The characteristics of parallel war and the air campaign primarily
are those provided by Colonel Warden . Like Col John R. Boyd before him,
most of Warden's brilliant exposition of parallel air warfare is in the oral
tradition : briefings and briefing slides . Where primary written works are
available, they are cited .
6. Warden, "Air Theory for the Twenty-first Century," 311-318 .
7. Dan Hughes reminded me that in physics, just as in jujitsu, a body
has and can have only one center of gravity. Dr Hughes is a colleague at the
Air War College, Air University .
8 . Warden, "Air Theory," 326-331 . See also John A. Warden III,
"Employing Air Power in the Twenty-first Century," in Richard H. Schultz, Jr.,
and Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr., eds ., The FVture of Air Power in the Aftermath
of the Gulf War (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air University Press, 1992), 64-69 .
9. John R. Pardo, Jr., "Parallel Warfare : Its Nature and Application," in
Karl P. Magyar, ed., Challenge and Response: Anticipating US Military
Security Concerns (Maxwell AFB, Ala .: Air University Press, 1994), 277-296 .
10. David Deptula, draft, unpublished manuscript, "Firing for Effect-
Change in the Nature of Warfare," 14 October 1994, 12-21 . The author is
grateful to Col Jeffrey Barnett, OSD/NA, for pointing out this essay.
144
11 . "Information Dominance Edges Toward New Conflict Frontier," Signal

Magazine, August 1994, 37-40. See also George Stein, "NetWar-CyberWar-
Information War," June 1994, forthcoming in Air Power Journal;- John
Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, "Cyberwar is Comingl" Comparative Strategy, 2,
April-June 1993, 141-65 ; and Norman B. Hutcherson, "Command and
Control Warfare : Putting Another Tool in the War-Fighters Data Base"
(Maxwell AFB, Ala .: Air University Press), 5 August 1994.
12. Conversation with Colonel Warden, 10 November 1994. See also
Warden, "Air Theory," 329-330 .
13. John Warden sometimes uses the example of 150 tornadoes
simultaneously striking the United States . Such a large number of
tornadoes hitting at the same time would make recovery exceedingly difficult
since recovery resources could not be shared easily .
14. Jeffrey R. Cooper, Another View of the Revolution in Military Affairs
(Carlisle Barracks, Pa. : US Army War College, 1994), 29-30 . Cooper's
insightful conclusions about the constraints on an authentic revolution in
military affairs (RMA) can also be applied to the air campaign theory of
parallel war.
15 . The United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Summary Report
(European War), 1945; reprinted in The United States Strategic Bombing
Surveys (European War) (Paces War) (Maxwell AFB, Ala . : Air University
Press, 1987) ; and Thomas A. Kearney and Elliot A. Cohen, Gulf War Air
Power Survey : Summary Report (Washington, D.C. : Government Printing
Office, 1993) . The bomber does not "always get through" (sometimes
bombers have difficulty getting through the budget process), nor are
precision weapons of much use unless supported by precise prestrike
information on the target and poststrike damage to it.
16. J. C. Wylie, Military Strategy : A General Theory ofPower Control (New
Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, 1967), 26. Italics added. Wylie
introduced the differentiations of sequential and cumulative in "Reflections
on the War in the Pacific," US Naval Institute Proceedings 78, no. 4, April _
1952, 351-361 . See also J . C. Wylie, Military Strategy: A General Theory of
Power Control, in Classics of Sea Power (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press,
1989), 101 .
17. Desmond Ball, "Development of the SIOP, 1960-1983," in Desmond
Ball and Jeffrey Richelson, eds ., Strategic Nuclear Targeting (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1986), 80-81 .
18. A historian assigned to the Gulf War Airpower Survey team, speaking
under the promise of nonattribution, pointed out to the Air Force officers
detailed to assist with the study that the targeting logic of the Instant
Thunder air campaign briefing was the same as the SIOP. He was told that
"parallel war" was "an Air Force idea," while the SIOP was a "joint idea."
Parallel war is an old idea. It remains an important one for nuclear
operations, since deterring and fighting a peer may require a return to
dependence on nuclear weapons.
19. Ballistic missile attack options evidenced extraordinary coherence
and simultaneity. Theoretically it was possible, for example, to time
sea-based and land-based ballistic missile launches so that all attacking
warheads arrived at the first possible point of enemy radar detection
145
simultaneously . Source is a discussion with Lt Gen Jay W. Kelley, USAF,

Maxwell AFB, Alabama, 1 December 1994. General Kelley is the commander
of Air University.
20. What may be "new" here may be that some in the tactical air forces
discovered the approach that strategic air and missile forces had long taken
to warfare . The Air Force Directorate of Warfighting Concepts Development
(AF/XOXW) lays claims to the notion of parallel warfare, using the
differences between parallel and serial electrical circuits as the illustrative
model . Admiral Wylie would probably be pleased ; imitation is the highest
form of flattery .
21 . CMDR J . M. van Toal, OSD Net Assessment, suggests that the
difference between employing nuclear weapons and nonnuclear weapons
creates distinctions that are "definitive ."
22. A state like Iraq is an even easier target set. A very senior air officer
involved in the Desert Storm air campaign, speaking under the promise of
nonattribution, asserted that achieving air supremacy against Iraq was
about as difficult as "shooting at a tethered goat."
23. Dan Hughes suggests that there are at least two sides to this issue .
Perhaps it was awareness of this likelihood in the leadership of the former
Soviet Union (or the US) that made such a US (or Soviet) attack unnecessary.
24. Alvin and Heidi Toffler, War and Anti-War: Survival at the Dawn of
the 21st Century (Boston : Little, Brown and Co., 1993) . Desert Storm was
not third wave warfare . It may, however, have been nearly the epitome of
second wave warfare .
25. John Keegan, A History of Warfare (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994) ;
Martin van Creveld, 7he 7y-ansformation of War (New York: Free Press, 1991) ;
and Carl Builder, "Guns or Butter : The Twilight of a Tradeoff?" (May 1994), a
presentation to the USAF Air University National Security Forum, Maxwell
AFB, Alabama . Used with permission.
26. Maj Gen Peter D. Robinson, former commandant of the Air War
College, points out that the techniques of mobility, deception, disguise,
dispersion, misinformation, and diversion are still useful ways of creating
ninjitsu.
27. The demassification and dehumanization of attack systems could
make the suppression of enemy air defenses a much lower priority. A
strength of the SIOP was the land-launched and sea-launched ballistic
missiles that preceded attacks by manned aircraft. SSBNs are "stealthy" by
virtue of their operations. The five-rings' parallel war air campaign planner
may not have such missiles to employ . Cruise missiles and stealth as a
design feature become the analog of intercontinental ballistic missiles and
were employed- as we would expect them to be if the SIOP and parallel
warfare theories are the same-in advance of manned systems .
28. James A. Winnefeld, Preston Niblack, and Dana J . Johnson, A
League of Airmen: U.S. Air Power in the Gulf War (Santa Monica, Calif.:
RAND, 1994), 120-121 .
29. Barry R. Schneider points out that "compacted serial warfare may `be
parallel warfare in effect " if the adversary does not have the time to respond
effectively . I would argue that this further illuminates a limitation in the
theory : to produce the "effect" desired in time, we must use Clausewitzian
146
mass in space. Absent nearly unlimited mass, the notion of parallel air
warfare may only be valid if applied against small countries . Dr Schneider is
a colleague at the Air War College, Air University.
30 . Advocates argue that the objective is not annihilation but "control ."
The possibility that control actually is secured by annihilating military
capability should not be overlooked.
31 . David Deptula, draft, "Firing for Effect," 20.
32 . Erich Jantsch, The Self-Organizing Universe (Oxford : Pergamon
Press, 1980), 7, quoted in Margaret J. Wheatley, Leadership and the New
Science : Learning about Organization from an Orderly Universe (San
Francisco : Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 1992), 18.
33. Alexander S. Cochran et. al., Gulf War Air Power Survey, Volume I:
Planning (Washington, D .C. : Government Printing Office, 1993), 103-4.
Dr Cochran is a colleague at the Air War College, Air University.
34. Joseph A. Engelbrecht, "War Termination : Why Does A State Decide
To Stop Fighting?" (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Graduate School of
Arts and Sciences, Columbia University, 1992) . Col Engelbrecht is a
colleague at the Air University's Air War College.
35. According to a senior Air Force officer speaking to the Air War College
under the promise of nonattribution, the Army is to blame for its passion for
"deep attack" and the way in which it uses the fire support coordination line
(FSCL) to apportion the battlespace . The Marines are to blame for
withholding sorties from the joint forces air component commander
(JFACC) . All of this, the official argued, reduces the power of airpower.
36. The importance of time and opportunity in warfare, dimensions
currently neglected in Army doctrine, is developed in Robert R. Leonhard,
Fighting by Minutes : Time and the Art of War (Westport, Conn. : Praeger
Publishers, 1994) . See the discussion of some of the limits of the ATO
system on page 74.
37. As Gen Al Gray, the former commandant of the Marine Corps, says,
"I've never seen a battlefield too crowded to exclude anyone who wants a
shot at the enemy."
38. The Department of Defense plans to increase investment in nonlethal
technologies significantly . One wonders if unwillingness to kill the enemy or
employ friendly ground forces in mortal combat against an adversary's
homeland forces renders the United States weak to the point of impotence . If
the Army and Marine Corps ground forces are unused in combat, they will
eventually become less useful for and effective in combat .
39. Joseph N. Pelton, Future View: Communications Technology and Society
in the 21st Century (Boulder, Colo.: Baylin Publishing, 1992), 196 .
40. V. K. Nair, War In The Gulf. Lessons for the Third World (New Delhi,
India: Lancer International, 1991), 110 .
41 . Said another way, information warfare may provide the antidote for
parallel warfare . Eventually, and embellished by technology to intrude into
acoustic, tactile, olfactory, and visual space, information technology may be
the antidote for all warfare . See Marshall and Eric McLuhan, Laws of Media:
The New Science (Toronto : University of Toronto Press, 1988) ; Gregory L.
Ulmer, Heuretics : The Logic of Invention (Baltimore : Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1994) ; and Diane Chotikul, "The Soviet Theory of Reflexive
147
Control in Historical and Psychocultural Perspective: A Preliminary Study,"

Technical Report NPS55-86-013 (Monterey, Calif.: Naval Postgraduate
School, 1986) .
42 . A theory that asserts, for example, that an air force "owns"
responsibility for everything that transits the air is not a warfare theory . A
theory that asserts, for example, that an air force "owns" responsibility for
the "deep battle" or the "high battle" is not a warfare theory. These are roles
and missions, or defense resource appropriation, theories. A theory, on the
other hand, hypothesizes that the battlespace is seamless .
43. Where the maintenance and modernization of large land armies
continue to sap national investments, the required technologies are less
likely to be forthcoming . France, England, and Germany provide good
examples. The "army" structurally and financially dominates the defense
debate and budget. Thus, airpower is foredoomed to structural impotence in
France, Germany, and England .
44 . A senior Air Force officer speaking to the Air War College under the
promise of nonattribution asserted that "without technology, there is no Air
Force ." Technology is a tool, a means to an end . When it becomes an end in
itself, it may serve itself instead ofwarfare .
45. Carl Builder, The Icarus Syndrome : The Role of Air Power Theory in
the Evolution and Fate of U.S. Air Force (New Brunswick, NJ. : Transaction
Publishers, 1994) .
Overview: Information Warfare Issues
Information warfare is emerging as a potent new element of

strategy. "Info War" is not the same as intelligence operations,
although it is clearly related to intelligence . As it is emerging in
Defense Department thinking, information warfare is an
attack on an adversary's entire information, command and
control, and, indeed, decision-making system .
As Air Force Plans puts it: information warfare is "any action
to deny, exploit, corrupt, or destroy the enemy's information
and its functions ; protecting ourselves against the actions ;
and exploiting our own information operations ." Information
warfare is directed at shrinking or interfering with the enemy's
Observe, Orient, Decide, Act (OODA) loop while expanding and
improving our own. Strategists now speak of information as a
"strategic asset," and planners describe the objective of
information war as "information dominance ."
Dr George Stein places emerging thinking on information
warfare into the context of the Tofflers wave theory: "As first
wave wars were fought over land, and `second wave' wars were
fought over physical resources and productive capacity, the
emerging `third wave' wars will be for the access to and control
of knowledge ." Related to information war are "net war" and
"cyberwar." Net war is information war waged largely through
communications systems . The 1991 Gulf War exhibited it via
the Coalition's attack on the whole spectrum of Saddam
Hussein's information, propaganda, command and control, etc.
But it is to the realm of "info propaganda" where Dr Stein calls
our particular attention-the emergence of techniques "combining
live actors with computer generated video graphics," and "fictive
simulators," and -other information manipulation which creates
"virtual realties" that could seriously threaten a state's control.
Cyberwar is the operational extension of information war and net
war-the tactical disruption, then domination, and perhaps even
the reordering, of an enemy's decision-cycle . However, Stein
cautions that whether cyberwar can actually "shape" the
battlefield, or merely generate chaos remains to be seen.
All this has obvious implications for command and control
warfare against an adversary. Governments which rely for
149
their legitimacy on insulating their societies from reality look

particularly vulnerable to information war. Sound strategy, then,
employs info war as an offensive element of operations, designed
to disrupt or end an adversary's communications and decision
making. Stein cautions, however, that democratic societies may
be particularly vulnerable to attack by adversaries using
information war, especially its components net war and
cyberwar . Their communications infrastructure is wide open to
attack for their "domestic computer, communications, and
information networks . . . are very vulnerable to penetration,
manipulation, or even destruction by determined hackers."
The essay by Col McLendon is built around a critique of the
historical evolution of information war. He uses the allied
deception and crypt analysis during WWII, and the impact of
information technology during the Gulf War, to illustrate the
quantum leap from propaganda and disinformation during
WWII to the systematic application of information warfare in
the post-Cold War age .
The use of allied "Ultra" intercepts of Nazi war plans and
operations was critical to allied success . Indeed, Ultra
intercepts, which were never compromised, "provided the bulk
of intelligence to the Allies during the war." As Supreme Court
Justice Lewis Powell, who had worked with Ultra during WWII
prior to launching his legal career, stated, "In no other war
have commanding generals had the quality and extent of
intelligence provided by Ultra." Ultra gave the British advance
warning of the German attack on England and of U-boat
operations against Atlantic convoys . Indeed, Churchill had to
make numerous painful decisions not to defend Allied assets
he knew were going to be attacked for fear of alerting the
Germans to Allied prior knowledge of their plans . An example
was the Luftwaffe raid on Coventry.
The Gulf War brought the use of information deception and
information war to its zenith . US Army units used the
NAVSTAR GPS at the tactical level to locate Iraqi units even in
the midst of desert sand storms . GPS, writes McClendon, "was
the capability that made possible the [Allies] `left hook' used to
defeat Saddam Hussein's armored divisions ." The sheer
information overload attendant to Coalition operations was
mind boggling: 700,000 phone calls and 150,000 messages
150
INFORMATION WARFARE ISSUES
per day; successful deconfliction of over 35,000 different

communications frequencies ; AWACS aircraft controlling
2,240 air sorties per day-more than 90,000 during the war
with no midair collisions.
The Gulf War experience has spurred recognition within the
US Defense Department that an ability to achieve "information
dominance" could represent a new era in strategy formulation.
"Global dominance," writes former Vice Chairman of the JCS,
Adm. David E. Jeremiah, "will be achieved by those that most
clearly understand the role of information and the power of
knowledge that flows from it."
Chapter 6
Information War - Cyberwar - Netwar
George J . Stein
In Arthur Waley's Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China,

Chuang Tzu tells the story of a simple gardener who was
shown a new tool that promised to change gardening . He
laughed scornfully and replied,
I used to be told by my teacher that where there are cunning
contrivances there will be cunning performances, and where
there are cunning performances there will be cunning hearts . He
in whose breast a cunning heart lies has blurred the pristine
purity of his nature; he who has blurred the pristine purity of his
nature has troubled the quiet of his soul, and with one who has
troubled the quiet of his soul Tao will not dwell. It is not that I do
not know about this invention ; but that I should be ashamed to
use it. I
Strategy, according to the Department of Defense, is the "art

and science of developing and using political, economic,
psychological, and military forces as necessary during peace and
war, to afford the maximum support to policies, in order to
increase the probabilities and favorable consequences of victory
and to lessen the chances of defeat."2 For most people, it is
obvious that the political and economic aspects of the national
security policies of the United States are developed by the
national political authorities (e .g., the president and the
Congress) and, in dealing with foreign states or groups, executed
by the Departments of State, Commerce, Agriculture, etc.
Policies for developing and using military forces are formulated
by the national political authorities and conveyed to the armed
forces through the secretary of defense . Few, however, have paid
much attention to just how and by whom psychological forces
are to be developed to support national policies . More
importantly: What are psychological forces? By whom will these
forces be used? With what authority? To what ends?
New tools and technologies for communication have created
the potential for a new form of psychological warfare to a
153
degree imagined only in science fiction . This new form of

warfare is known as "information warfare ." When we come to
know the Tao of such an invention as information warfare, we
may find that we are ashamed to use it.
The futurists Alvin and Heidi Toffler have argued that the
United States armed forces need to develop a "systematic,
capstone concept of military knowledge strategy." Such a
strategy would include clear doctrine, and a policy for how the
armed forces will acquire, process, distribute, and project
knowledge . 3
Quoting from the "Memorandum of Policy No. 30" (6 May
1993) of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Tofflers argue that the
US military is expanding the concept of Information War to
include psychological operations aimed at influencing the
"emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the
behavior" of others . Such an expansion would mirror the
evolution of traditional warfare toward Information War. It
would also mirror the progrssive steps of generating wealth
from agriculture and natural resources in much earlier times,
to the nineteenth and early twentieth century emphasis on
industrial production, to the present emphasis on generating
information products as a major new source of income.
As "first wave" wars were fought for land and "second wave"
wars were fought for control over productive capacity, the
emerging "third wave" wars will be fought for control of
knowledge . And, since "combat form" in any society follows the
"wealth-creation form" of that society, wars of the future will
be increasingly "information wars ."
Currently, there is neither formal military doctrine nor
official definitions of information warfare . Despite the
computer jargon involved, the idea of information warfare has
not only captured the attention of military analysts-it also
poses important policy questions.4
Despite the lack of authoritative definition, "netwar" and
"cyberwar" are emerging as key concepts in discussing
Information War. Originally these ideas seem to have come
from the science fiction community . Consider, for example, the
thought-provoking future war suggested in Bruce Sterling's
Islands in the Nets More recently, the concepts of netwar and
cyberwar have been developed by John Arquilla and David
154
INFORMATION WAR - CYBERWAR - NEIWAR
Ronfeldt in their important essay, "Cyberwar is Comingl" 6

Their suggestions provide a thoughtful starting point for
exploring the issues that surround "information war."
Netwar, according to them, is a societal-level ideational conflict
waged in part through internetted modes of communication.
That is, netwar is most likely to be a nation-against-nation
strategic level conflict . Netwar is about ideas and epistemology-
what is known and how it is known. It would be waged largely
through a society's communication systems .
The target of netwar is the human mind. One could argue
that certain aspects of the cold war had the characteristics of a
dress rehearsal for future netwar. Consider, for example,
Radio Free Europe, the Cominform, Agence France Presse, or
the US Information Agency. But netwar may involve more than
traditional state-to-state conflict. The emerging of nonstate
political actors such as Greenpeace and Amnesty International,
as well as survivalist militias or Islamic revivalists, all with easy
access to worldwide computer networks for the exchange of
information or the coordination of political pressure on a
national or global basis, suggests that the governments may not
be the only parties waging Information War.
At first glance, netwar may appear to be a new word for
old-fashioned propaganda. It would be comforting to believe
that the "tried and true" methods (and limitations) of
propaganda still worked. And the Gulf War showed that both
Saddam Hussein and the Alliance were still of the old school.
The war contained many elements of classic propaganda :
accusations of bombed baby-milk factories and stolen baby
incubators, inflated rhetoric and inflated stakes of the conflict;
the future of the new world order and "the mother of battles"
for the future of Islam ; and the classic "us or them"
polarization in which "neutrality" or unenthusiastic support
was decried .
One element of traditional propaganda was absent, however,
while Saddam Hussein became the "new Hitler" and President
Bush was the "Great Satan," there was little demonization or
dehumanization of the opponent . Perhaps the multicultural
nature of the American-led alliance precluded turning the Iraqi
army into something subhuman . Indeed, there may have been
a spark of netwar genius in treating the Islamic Iraqi soldiers
155
as "brave men put into an impossible situation by a stupid

leader." Under such conditions, there is no dishonor in
surrendering . And there may have been a glimpse of future
netwar-it is rumored that Baghdad Radio signed on one
morning with "The Star-Spangled Banner."
Traditional propaganda was usually targeted to influence a
mass audience . Contemporary technologies have the potential
to customize propaganda . Anyone who has received
individually targeted advertising from a company specializing
in "niche" marketing has had a momentary shudder upon
realizing that some private companies seem to know
everything about our tastes and buying habits .
Contemporary databases and multiple channels for
information transmission have created the opportunity for
custom-tailored netwar attacks . Computer bulletin boards,
cellular telephones, video cameras tied to fax machines-all
provide entry points and dissemination networks for customized
assault.
A major new factor in information war results directly from
the worldwide infosphere of television and broadcast news .
Many people have begun to realize that governmental
decisions are becoming increasingly reactive to a "fictive"
universe created by, CNN and its various international
competitors . This media-created universe is dubbed "fictive"
rather than "fictional" because while what is shown may be
"true," it is just not the whole, relevant, or contextual truth.
And, of course, the close etymological relationship between
"fictive" and "fictional" suggests how easy it is to manipulate
the message.
Nevertheless, this fictive universe becomes the politically
relevant universe in societies in which the government or its
military is supposed to "do something." Somalia gets in the
news and the United States gets into Somalia despite the
reality of equally disastrous starvation, disorder, and rapine
right next door in Sudan. There were no reporters with
"skylink" in Sudan because the government of Sudan issued
no visas . The potential for governments, parties in a civil war
such as Bosnia, rebels in Chiapis, or even nonstate interests
to manipulate the multimedia, multisource fictive universe to
"wage societal-level ideational conflicts" should be obvious .?
156
INFORMATION WAR - CYBERWAR - NETWAR
Fictive or fictional operational environments, then, whether

mass-targeted or niche-targeted, can be generated, transmitted,
distributed, or broadcast by governments or all sorts of players
through increasingly diversified networks . The niche-
manipulation potential available to states or private interests
with access to the universe of internetted communications
such as the networks over which business, commercial, or
banking information are transmitted to suggest that "Mexico"
is about to devalue the peso could easily provoke financial
chaos . The target state would not know what had happened
until too late.$
Direct satellite broadcast to selected cable systems, analogous
to central control of pay-per-view programs, again offers the
potential for people in one province or region of a targeted
state to discover that the maximum leader has decided to
purge their clansmen from the army. To put it in the jargon of
the infowarriors, info-niche attack 'in an increasingly
multisource fictive universe offers unlimited potential for
societal-level netwar .
Pictures Worth A Thousand Tanks
When the new, but already well-understood, simulation

technologies of the Tekwar and MTV generation are added to
the arsenal of netwar, a genuinely revolutionary transfor-
mation of propaganda and warfare becomes possible .
Traditional propaganda might have attempted to discredit an
adversary's news media showing, for example, that as the
official casualty figures were demonstrably false, all "news"
from the government was equally false. The credibility of the
opponent was the target and the strategic intention was to
separate the government from the people.
Today, the mastery of the techniques of combining live
actors with computer-generated video graphics can easily
create a "virtual" news conference, summit meeting, or
perhaps even a battle which exists in "effects" though not in
fact. Stored video images can be recombined endlessly to
produce any effect chosen. Now, perhaps, "pictures" will be
worth a thousand tanks.
157
Of course, "truth will out" eventually, but by the time the

people of the targeted nation discover that the nationwide
broadcast of the conversation between the maximum leader
and "Jimmy Carter" in which all loyal citizens were told to
cease fighting and return to their homes was created in
Hollywood or Langley, the war may be over . Netwar is
beginning to enter the zone of illusion .
This is not science fiction ; these are the capabilities of
existing or rapidly emerging technologies. Here's how it might
work: through hitching a ride on an unsuspecting commercial
satellite, a "fictive simulation" is broadcast. Simultaneously,
various "info-niches" in the target state are accessed via "the
net." These info-niche targets, and the information they
receive, are tailored to the strategic needs of the moment :
some receive reinforcement for the fictive simulation; other
receive the "real" truth ; others receive merely slight variations .
What is happening here?
This kind of manipulation elevates the strategic potential of
infopropaganda to new heights . This is not traditional
propaganda in which the target is discredited as a source of
reliable information. Rather, the very possibility of "truth" is
being replaced with "virtual reality" ; that is, "information"
which produces effects independent of its physical reality .
What is being attacked in a strategic level netwar are not only
the emotions, or motives, or beliefs of the target population,
but the very power of objective reasoning: this threatens the
very possibility of state control .
Let us return to the previous scenario to play out its effects .
The fictive simulation of the maximum leader's call to stop
fighting would, of course, be followed immediately by a "real"
broadcast in which state "Voice and Vision" exposes the
netwar attack as propaganda invented by "culture destroyers
in Hollywood ." "Jimmy Carter" is denounced as a hoax. But
the damage has already been done : it is all but impossible for
the television viewers of the targeted state to tell which
broadcast is true and which fiction, at least in a timely
manner . In a society under assault across its entire
infosphere, it will become increasingly difficult for members of
that society to verify internally the truth or accuracy of
anything . Objective reasoning is threatened .
15 8
At the strategic level, the ability to "observe" is flooded by

contradictory information and data; more importantly, the
ability to "orient" is weakened by the assault on the very
possibility of objective reasoning ; "decisions" respond
increasingly to a fictive or virtual universe and, of course,
governmental or military "actions" become increasingly chaotic
as there is no "rational" relationship of means to ends .
It would seem, then, that strategic-level netwar or information
war brings us within sight of that elusive "acme of skill"
wherein the enemy is subdued without killing by attacking his
ability to form a coherent strategy . 9
Reality, however, may be far more complex than the
infowarriors yet imagine, and victory not so neat. The idea of
"societal-level ideational conflict" may need to be considered
with all the care given to the conduct of nuclear war, as the
"end state" of netwar may not be bloodless surrender but total
disruption of the targeted society . Victory may be too costly as
the cost may be truth itself.
What Is Truth?
Any discussion of information warfare, netwar, cyberwar, or

even perception manipulation as a component of command
and control warfare by the armed forces of the United States at
the strategic level must occur in the context of the moral
nature of communication in a pluralistic, secular, democratic
society. That is, the question must be raised whether using the
techniques of information warfare at the strategic level is
compatible with American purposes and principles .
Likewise, the question must be raised whether the armed
forces of the United States have either the moral or legal
authority and, more importantly, the practical ability to
develop and deploy the techniques of information warfare at
the strategic level in a prudent and practical manner. There
are good reasons to be skeptical.
According to the philosopher Eric Voegelin, the moral basis
of communication in any society can be discussed in terms of
its substantive, pragmatic, and intoxicant functions . 10 The
substantive purpose of communication is the building or
developing of the individual human personality ; it is
159
simultaneously the process by which a substantive, real-world

community of "like-minded" persons is created, developed and
sustained . Simply, it is the glue which binds a society together.
At the most trivial level, the moral purpose of substantive
communication can be seen in contemporary American efforts
to remove sexist or racist language from accepted use. At a
more serious level, the debates in American society about
prayer in the public schools illustrate a recognition of the
substantive and formative nature of communication in society,
as "private religious views," in the view of many, must not
corrupt the public school formation of character for life in
pluralistic, modern America.
Finally, any real world society rests on the substantive
communication and understanding among its members .
Again, in Voegelin's terms, society is no mere external
structure of relationships ; it is a "cosmion," a universe of
meaning "illuminated with meaning from within by the human
beings who continuously create and bear it as the mode and
condition of their self-realization ."' 1
The efforts of several nations such as China, Iran, or Saudi
Arabia to insulate their societies from the effects of the global
communications network illustrate their awareness that their
cultures and societies may depend on a shared, substantive
universe of discourse distinctive to their societies .
Even within the West, the French believe the continued
existence of France as a distinctive society organized for action
in history may require state intervention in the substantive
content of communication within society . 12 That France seeks
to limit the percentage of foreign broadcast material and
American films in Europe illustrates the seriousness with
which they consider the substantive nature of communication .
Voegelin's second construct, identifying the pragmatic
function of communication in society, is reasonably
straightforward . Pragmatic communication is defined by its
goal and consists of the universe of techniques designed to
influence other persons to behave in ways the communicator
wishes . Only behavior matters . Most political and commercial
communication is merely pragmatic . It is usually indifferent
to the substantive moral content of the communication and
intends to mold perception, and consequently behavior, to the
160
purposes of the communicator. This pragmatic use of com-

munication as an attempt at perception manipulation is, of
course, the central essence of information war. Its use by the
government and the armed forces is, consequently, the real issue.
Finally, the intoxicant function of communication in
American society is equally straightforward . The addiction of a
considerable part of the citizenry to talk shows, soap operas,
romance novels, professional sports broadcasts, high-profile
legal trials and other well-known forms of distraction and
diversion is well catered to by the entertainment industry.
For Voegelin then, civil communication or public discourse in
contemporary American society is dominated almost entirely by
the intoxicant and pragmatic modes. More importantly, the
absence of substantive communication in public life is defended
by much of the secular and liberal political class in the name of
freedom, pluralism, and multiculturalism.
Pluralistic America is supposed to be a society in which the
formation of character or opinion is left, through the use of
various means of communication, to private initiative .
Government attempts at "communication" in an information
war, especially if prosecuted by the armed forces, would raise
serious questions in a pluralistic, multicultural society .
The official military view of strategy, recall, is the "art and
science of developing and using political, economic,
psychological, and military forces as necessary during peace
and war to afford the maximum support to policies, in order to
increase the probabilities and favorable consequences of
victory and to lessen the chances of defeat." 13
Strategy is the means to achieve an end, with military
strategy serving political or policy purposes . A slightly different
view of strategy, however, may highlight a problem of
Information War. If strategy were seen as "a plan of action
designed to achieve some end; a purpose together with a
system of measures for its accomplishment," the limitations of
infowar thinking are obvious . 14
Sound military strategy requires influencing the adversary
decision maker in some way that is not only advantageous but
reasonably predictable. The goal is control, not chaos. A
national security strategy of information war or netwar at the
strategic level-that is, "societal-level ideational conflict waged
in part through internetted modes of communication"-and an

operational-level cyberwar or command-and-control warfare
campaign to decapitate the enemy's command structure from its
body of troops may or may not be "advantageous" but, more
importantly, is unlikely to produce effects that are reasonably
predictable .
Conflict is about a determinate something, not an indeter-
minate anything. If the goal of influencing the adversary's ability
to "observe" by flooding him with corrupted or contradictory
information and data; disrupting his ability to "orient" by the
elimination of the possibility of objective reasoning ; and forcing
his "decisions" to respond to a fictive or virtual universe,
"actions" will, of course, be produced, but they may well be
actions which are chaotic, random, nonlinear and inherently
unpredictable by our side as there is no "rational" relationship of
means to ends.
In the context of military operational-level cyberwar or
command-and-control warfare, this appeals to the infowarrior an
attractive military strategy . The inherently unpredictable nature
of combat, the notorious "fog and friction" of real battle, will be
amplified for the enemy in a successful cyberwar.
A successful cyber-strategy depends on the ability of the local
military commander to deploy his power assets, especially his
combat forces, not merely to dominate the enemy decision cycle
(which, after all, has just been rendered chaotic), but to exploit
opportunities as they evolve unpredictably from the disoriented,
decapitated, or irrational enemy actions . Whether, then,
command-and-control warfare can "shape" the battlefield or will
merely generate chaos remains to be seen.
Cyber-strategy is the control of the evolution of the battlefield
or theater power distribution to impose the allied commander's
"order" on the enemy's "chaos." As Sun-Tzu observed, 'Mose
who are able to adapt to changes in the enemy and achieve
victory are considered supreme ."15 The threat exists, however,
that the destruction of enemy rationality may collapse "battle"
into mere "fighting" with no outcome but surrender or death .
Merely defeating hostile fielded military forces may be
insufficient.
Sun-Tzu also observed that "when battles gain victories and
attacks achieve occupations, yet these successes are not
162
followed up, it is disastrous . This is known as 'persisting

turmoil' ." 16 Whether the recent Gulf War was a strategic victory
or mere "battle" remains for historians to ,judge . Operational-
level cyberwar may, then, be that very "acme of skill" which
reduces the enemy will without killing. On the other hand, it
may also be the abolition of strategy as it attacks the very
rationality the enemy requires to decide for war termination .
Strategic Implications
The tools, techniques and strategy for cyberwar will be

developed and, during wartime, should be employed . In many
ways, cyberwar is more demanding than netwar .
But the resources, organization, and training needed for
cyberwar will be provided once its war-winning, and casualty-
reducing, potential is grasped by the national political
leadership. Such a development would certainly be prudent .
On the other hand, many of the tools and techniques of
battlefield cyberwar can be applied to netwar or strategic-level
information war. This application may not be prudent,
however, as there are serious reasons to doubt the ability of
the United States to prosecute information war successfully.
One reason is that the United States is an open society; it
may be too vulnerable to engage in netwar with an adversary
prepared to "fight back ."I 7 The communications infrastructure,
the "information highway," is "wide open" in our society.
American society may be terribly vulnerable to a strategic
netwar attack; getting us to believe fictive claims appears to be
what commercial and political advertising are all about, and
they seem to be effective . Also we may find physical control
and security to be impossible . The domestic computer,
communication, and information networks essential for the
daily functioning of American society are very vulnerable to
penetration and manipulation-even destruction-by determined
hackers . 18 In the future, these may not be amateurs but
well-paid "network ninjas" inserting the latest French, Iranian,
or Chinese virus into Compuserve or other parts of the
internet . 19
A strategic information warfare attack on America's
communication systems, including our military communication
163
systems, air traffic control system, financial net, fuel pipeline

pumping software,and computer-based clock/timing systems,
could result in societal paralysis .
Currently, for example, over 14,000 Internet databases are
being used by over 30 million people in over 90 nations . Over
1,600 software pirates are prowling the Internet, some in the
employ of hostile commercial or intelligence services . The
recent "spy flap" between France and the United States over
alleged US attempts to gather data on French Telecom may be
indicative of the future .2o
Infosphere dominance-controlling the world of information
exchange-may be as complex and elusive as "escalation
dominance" appeared to be in nuclear strategy .2 l It will
certainly be expensive: the US business community and the
US armed forces are required to devote ever more resources
and attention to computer, communications, and database
security. The resources and skills required for battlefield
cyberwar are not insignificant, but the resources and skills
required to wage Information War at the national strategic
level would be massive .
The second reason to doubt US ability to prosecute an infor-
mation war is that the political and legal issues surrounding info
war are murky. What of congressional oversight? Would one
"declare" information war in response, say, to an Iranian-
originated computer virus assault on the FBI's central terrorist
database? And what about preparing for it? How should we
develop and implement a national capability for netwar?
While theoretically a requirement to develop or implement a
national information war strategy, analogous to the nuclear-
era single integrated operations plan, could be communicated
from the president to the executive branch agencies, it is
unclear whether there would be adequate congressional
oversight . Which committees of the House or Senate would
have control and oversight of policies attendant to information
war, and which would have the power to inquire into the
judgment of a local ambassador or military commander who
wished to use the tools of cyberwar for a perception
manipulation in peacetime that would shape the potential
wartime environment?22
164
The US armed forces only execute the national military

strategy-they do not control it. However, they are developing,
quite appropriately, the tools and techniques to execute the
national military strategy for operational-level cyberwar . They
are simultaneously, albeit unintentionally, developing the tools
and capabilities to execute a national strategic information war
strategy. The former is their job under the Constitution; the
latter may not be. Congressional oversight in the development of
a national strategic-level information war capability is even more
essential than oversight of the intelligence community.
The third reason to doubt US capabilities in prosecuting an
effective information war is that such a "societal-level ideational
conflict waged in part through internetted modes of
communication" may simply be beyond the competence of the
executive agencies that would have to determine the substantive
content to be communicated . Pluralism is a great strength of
American society, but perhaps a drawback in waging information
war.
While diversity may make the formation and execution of
domestic and even foreign policy more complex, the lack of a
moral center or public philosophy in American society could
render the political leadership incapable of building a consensus
on strategic-level information war policies . And, since there is no
single view of what is morally acceptable, but simply a host of
contending views, a national security strategy of information war
could be developed by the national security decision makers that
lacked a moral consensus .
The technological wizardry does not change the humanity of
the target . Unless the goal of information war is merely to
unhinge people from their ability to reason objectively, and
thereby create an interesting problem for post-conflict
reconstruction, any strategic-level netwar or information war
would seem to require the ability to communicate a replacement
for the discredited content of the target society.
If, say, an information war were to be mounted against China
to disrupt its drive for regional hegemony, the goal would be to
"withdraw the Mandate of Heaven" from the rulers and
"influence" the Chinese leaders and people to adopt the policies
or behavior we find appropriate.
165
Put in terms of such a concrete policy goal, the

philosophically problematic nature of information war
becomes outrageously obvious . Does anyone really believe that
the US national executive agencies, including the armed forces
and the Central Intelligence Agency, know the substantive
discourse of China sufficiently well to withdraw the Mandate of
Heaven?
The final reason, they{, can be stated in the form of a
question : does anyone really believe that anyone in the US
government has the philosophical sophistication to project an
alternative discourse to replace the emotions, motives,
reasoning, and behavior grounded in the Chinese reality we
propose to influence? Would our "fictive" creation really have
"virtual" effects. We might be able to use the armed forces or
the CIA to destroy China's objective reasoning through a
"successful" information war. Indeed, we might be able to
loose anarchy in a society, but that is not usually the political
goal of war.
Second Thoughts
The techniques being developed by the armed forces for a

more narrowly constrained operational-level cyberwar was
demonstrated in the Gulf War. Translated to the strategic
level, however, netwar or information war is not a prudent
national security or military strategy for the simple reason that
neither the armed forces nor any other instruments of national
power have the ability to exploit an adversary's society in a
way that promises either advantageous or predictable results .
"Societal-level ideational conflict" must be considered with
all the care given to the conduct of nuclear war, as the "end
state" of a netwar may be total disruption of the targeted
society . Conflict resolution, including ending wars this side of
blasting people into unconditional surrender, assumes and
requires some-rationality-even if that rationality is the mere
coordination of ends with means .
Moral reasoning and substantive communication may not
be required; minimal reasoning and pragmatic communication
are required . However, a successful all-out strategic-level
information war may, however, have destroyed the enemy's
166
ability to know anything with certainty and, thereby, his

capacity for minimal reasoning or pragmatic communication .
In some exercises during the cold war "decapitation" of the
Soviet military leadership in a hypothetical nuclear exchange
was intended to defend the United States by preventing an
escalatory or exploitative strike, nuclear or otherwise . Precisely
how war termination would have been accomplished without
an effective leadership will remain, hopefully, one of the great
mysteries . The "decapitation" of the leadership is, however,
often proposed as a key goal of an information war. That is,
the credibility and legitimacy-even the physical ability to
communicate-of the decisionmakers will be compromised or
destroyed relative to their own population and in terms of their
own worldview . And even if we merely "seize" his
communication system electronically and substitute our
"reality" into his society, with whom, then, do we negotiate the
end of the conflict?
What confidence do we have that a call to surrender, even if
communicated to the people by either the enemy leadership or
our "net warriors," would be accepted as "real" and not another
"virtual" event? And, depending on the content, intensity, and
"totality" of a strategic information war, personalities could be
flooded with irrational or unconsciousness factors-the clinical
consequence of which is generally acute psychosis . How do we
accomplish conflict resolution, war termination, or postconflict
reconstruction with a population or leadership whose "objective
reasoning" has been compromised?
Just as the mutually destructive effects of nuclear war
were disproportionate to the goals of almost any imaginable
conflict, so may be the mutually destructive effects of a "total"
information war exchange on the publics exposed and
subsequent rational communication between the sides . And as
the techniques of "cyberstrike" proliferate throughout the world,
enabling small powers, nonstate actors, or even terrorist hackers
to do massive damage to the United States, "mutually assured
cyberdestruction" may result in a kind of infowar deterrence. As
Sun-Tzu advised, "without advantage, do not act; without gain,
do not utilize ; without crises, do not battle ."23
Information War, then, may be the central national security
issue of the twenty-first century . Therefore, the United States
167
must develop a coherent national-level policy on the military

and strategic use of new information warfare technologies . To
facilitate this objective, the US armed forces are developing,
under the rubric of command and control warfare, the
technologies and systems that will provide the capability for
"cyberwar."
It may be possible to control and exploit information so as to
purposely generate stochastic chaos, though there are some
doubts .24 Many of the same technologies and systems can be
used to develop a national-level capability for strategic
"netwar ." Here, however, there are genuine doubts . As
Voegelin feared, it may not be possible to control and exploit
information and information technologies to impose "a form
on the remnants of societies no longer capable of self-
organization" because their substantive universe of meaning
has been destroyed or corrupted. 25
Few info-warriors would claim the ability to "reorient" the
former Soviet Union into a liberal society, or to influence the
far more ancient barbarism in that heart of darkness, Rwanda .
Perhaps strategic-level information war is, indeed, like nuclear
war: the capability is required for deterrence; its employment,
the folly of mutually assured destruction . But if the United
States is to develop the capacity for information war, in the
sure and certain knowledge that the technologies have already
"proliferated" to both state and nonstate potential rivals, a
realistic national consensus must be built.
It is useless to pretend that the proliferation of these
technologies will not provide capabilities that can do serious
harm. It is useless to pretend that military-based command
and control warfare capabilities will not be developed, and it is
useless to pretend that cyberwar technologies could not be
turned to netwar applications . It is almost universally agreed
that these capabilities are essential on the contemporary
battlefield .
It is essential, then, that the president and the Congress
give serious and sustained attention to cyberwar, netwar, and
information war.
168
Notes
1 . Arthur Waley, Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China (New York:

Doubleday, 1939), 70.
2. Joint Pub 1-02, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and
Associated Terms (Washington, DC : US Government Printing Office, 1989),
350.
3. Alvin & Heidi Toffler, War and Antiwar: Survival at the Dawn of the
21st Century (Boston : Little, Brown & Co ., 1993), 141 .
4. The vocabulary of information warfare includes information war,
information-based war, command and control warfare, information
operations, C3I, electronic warfare, and, in Russian usage, sixth-generation
warfare.
5. Bruce Sterling, Islands in the Net (New York: Ace, 1988) .
6. John Arquilla & David Ronfeldt, "Cyberwar is Comingl," Comparative
Strategy 12: no.2 (April-June, 1993), 141-165 .
7. Historians may record that Ecuador's posting of government
communiques on the internet at the beginning of the recent "war" with Peru
may have been the first "netstrike." "A Borderless Dispute," Newsweek, 20
February 1995, 20.
8. H .D . Arnold et. al, "Targeting Financial Systems as Centers of
Gravity : 'Low Intensity' to 'No Intensity Conflict,' Defense Analysis, 10, no.2.
August, 1994, 181-208 .
9. Ralph D. Sawyer, trans ., Sun-tzw The Art of War (New York: Barnes
& Noble, 1994), 177.
10. Eric Voegelin, "Necessary Moral Bases for Communication in a
Democracy," Problems of Communication in a Pluralistic Society (Milwaukee :
Marquette University Press, 1956), 53-68.
11. Eric Voegelin, The New Science of Politics, (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1952), 27.
12. John Andrews, "Culture Wars," Wired, May 1995, 130-138 .
13. Rear Admiral J .C. Wylie, Military Strategy: A General Theory ofPower
Control (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1967), 14.
14. Sun-Tzu, The Art ofWar, trans ., J.H. Huang. (New York: Quill, 1993),
68.
15. Ibid, 109.
16. Peter Black, "Soft Kill: fighting infrastructure wars in the 21st
century," Wired, July/August 1993, 49-50.
17 . Paul Wallich, "A Rogue's Routing," Scientific American 272, no. 5,
(May 1995), 31 .
18. Winn Schwartau, Information Warfare: Chaos on the Electronic
Superhighway (New York: Thunders Mountain Press, 1994) .
19. Jean Pichot-Duclos, "Toward a French 'Economic Intelligence'
Model," Defense Nationale, Jan 1994, 73-85, in Federal Broadcast
Information Service - West Europe 25 January 1994, 26-31 .
20 . John Arquilla, "The Strategic Implications of Information
Dominance," Strategic Review, Summer, 1994, 24-30.
21 . Joint Chiefs of Staff Memorandum of Policy 30, Command and
Control Warfare, 8 March 1993.
169
22 . Sun Tzu, 110 .

23 . Jeffrey R. Cooper, Another View of the Revolution in Military Affairs
(Carlisle Barracks, Pa: Strategic Studies Institute, Army War College, 1994) .
24. Eric Voegelin, '"The Ecumenic Age," in Order and History (Baton
Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1974), 117 .
25. Brig V.K. Nair, War in the Gulf Lessons for the Third World (New
Delhi: Lancer International, 1991) .
Chapter 7
Information Warfare:
Impacts and Concerns
Col James W. McLendon, USAF
Information has always been a critical factor in war.

Clausewitz said "imperfect knowledge of the situation . . . can
bring military action to a standstill," and Sun Tzu indicated
information is inherent in war fighting. Information warfare
embodies the impact of information on military operations .
The computer age gives us the capability to absorb, evaluate,
use, transmit, and exchange large volumes of information at
high speeds to multiple recipients simultaneously . Multiple
sources of data can be correlated faster than ever. Thus, the
value of information to the war fighter has been magnified to a
new level.
Churchill used information warfare when he used the
Enigma machine to read German codes during World War
II. He also used information warfare through his elaborate
network emanating from the London Controlling Section,
for its time a very complex intelligence and deception
operation .
Lessons from Desert Storm gave impetus to this fourth
dimension of warfare. It was in this conflict that the computer
came of age, and presented us with new challenges, both
offensively and defensively, that must be faced in the future .
Not only do we have opportunities to enhance our offensive
capabilities manyfold, but we must consider the additional
vulnerabilities to our systems that come with this added
capability . The widespread availability of information
technology dictates that we carefully assess the vulnerabilities
of the systems we employ.
Information warfare adds a fourth dimension of warfare to
those of air, land, and sea . In this new dimension, we must
stay ahead .
Information Warfare : Old Concept, New Technology
Given the wide realm of activities that might be included

under the heading of information warfare, one might conclude
that it is not a new concept but rather one that can be more
aggressively employed today with new technology. Had the
term information warfare existed in Churchill's day, he might
have used it to describe his activities involving Ultra. Given the
availability of communications and computer technology
today, the potential for information warfare seems limitless .
Unlike nuclear weaponry, however, this technology is not
limited to a few nations . It is widespread and available to any
country, and, in most cases, to any individual or group that
wants it. It is for this reason that our pursuit of an offensive
information warfare capability must not overshadow our
appreciation of the need for a defensive capability .
This essay offers evidence of the need for a rigorous defensive
information warfare capability. It includes a case study from
World .War II that demonstrates Churchill's creativity in using
information warfare against the Germans and proposes that
history may not have completely documented his activities in
this endeavor. From World War II, we move to the Persian Gulf
War, where information technology was embedded in virtually
every aspect of Coalition operations . Our dependence on
information media during the Gulf War is evident . This
dependency may also equate to yet unknown vulnerabilities,
thus highlighting the need for the protection of these media.
Information has always been a critical factor in war. According
to Clausewitz, "imperfect knowledge of the situation . . .can bring
military action to a standstill ."' Pick up any book on war, and
the value of information becomes clear. As indicated by Sun Tzu
in 500 B.C., it is inherent in warfighting.2 It may be obvious that
the more an army knows about itself and its enemy, the stronger
it will be in battle . What is not so obvious are the uses that may
be made of information, and how knowledge can be manipulated
to reinforce the strength of an army many times over.
Information warfare embodies the impact of information, or
knowledge, on military operations. It is defined as "any action to
deny, exploit, corrupt, or destroy the enemy's information and
its functions ; protecting ourselves against those actions ; and
172
INFORMATION WARFARE
exploiting our own information operations ."3 Additionally in

this context, information warfare "views itself as both separate
realm and lucrative target."4 While this definition is new, the
concept isn't. It is only as we come to terms with the benefits
of the computer age that we realize the potential in conducting
the operations described above.
The computer age gives us the capability to absorb, evaluate,
use, transmit, and exchange large volumes of information at
high speeds to multiple recipients simultaneously . Multiple
sources of data can be correlated faster than ever. Until recently,
masses of information were transmitted in the literal, or
alphanumeric format, and had to be read and manually
manipulated to be of any use. This made it difficult to sort the
critical from the useful, and much of the information went into
the burn bag. Today, much of that same information is
transmitted to the war fighter digitally and presented graphically .
Little goes to waste. Thus, the value of information, its uses, and
our dependence on it have been magnified to a new level.
Duane Andrews, former assistant secretary of defense for
C3I (command, control, communications, and intelligence),
describes information today as a "strategic asset."5 The
Tofflers go even further. In their discussion on third wave war,
they refer to "knowledge warriors," describing them as
"intellectuals in and out of uniform dedicated to the idea that
knowledge can win, or prevent, wars ."6
Maj Gen Kenneth Minihan, Air Force assistant chief of staff for
intelligence, describes information warfare in more objective
terms, which he says is really "information dominance ." 7 In
describing information dominance, he puts it this way:
Information dominance is not "my pile of information is bigger

than yours" in some sort of linear sense. It is not just a way to
reduce the fog of war on our side or thicken it on the enemy's
side. It is not analysis of yesterday's events, although proper
application of historical analysis is important to gaining
information dominance . It is something that is battled for, like air
superiority. It is a way of increasing our capabilities by using that
information to make right decisions, (and) apply them faster than
the enemy can. It is a way to alter the enemy's entire perception
of reality . It is a method of using all information at our disposal to
predict (and affect) what happens tomorrow before the enemy
even jumps out ofbed and thinks about what to do today ."8
173
The Navy presents the bottom line view: "Information, in all its
forms, is the keystone to success . "9
The Department of Defense and all of the services are doing
more than paying lip service to this new dimension . In
addition to their attempts to fund extended programs in this
subject, senior military leaders are taking strong positions in
favor of this capability . Unfortunately, while the United States
holds the lead in information technology today, other nations,
including developing nations, are rapidly gaining access to this
capability. This is cause for concern, and the answers are not
simple.
Information Warfare in World War H:

How Far Did Churchill Go?
World War II saw many firsts . Some of the more significant

examples were : large-scale air-to-air combat, strategic
bombing-both daylight and nightthe use of naval carriers
to project airpower, and the first and only uses of atomic
bombs during hostilities . The following case study asserts that
we also saw the first widespread and well-orchestrated use of
information warfare, and presents a hypothetical model for
interaction between deception and cryptanalysis .
Many of us remain intrigued by the clandestine and covert
operations conducted by the Allies in WWII . This study
discusses two of those operations : deception and
cryptanalysis based on radio intercepts . It also, and more
importantly, attempts to build a model for an interactive
relationship between the two that could have synergistically
improved the contributions of these operations to the
successful prosecution of the war. The model, though purely
hypothetical, uses facts to present a case for the potential of
maximizing misinformation through the integration of these
two disciplines . Said another way, this paper suggests that
the Allied leadership, specifically Winston Churchill, found
cryptanalysis necessary but not sufficient for victory .
Cryptanalysis and deception were both necessary and
174
INFORMATION WARFARE
sufficient. Hence, the logic of the model suggests that

Churchill directed an offensive information warfare campaign .
The Logic of the Model
The question posed is whether Prime Minister Churchill

would, or could, have selectively chosen to chance using the
Enigma (the machine used by the Germans to encipher
high-grade wireless traifici°) to encipher notional messages
and intrude on German wireless radio nets to misinform the
Germans on Allied intentions or otherwise disrupt German
military operations .
Churchill's concern for the security of the Enigma, and the
knowledge that it was being used by the Allies, was
considerable, as will be shown later. The risk of compromising
Allied use of the Enigma was colossal, affecting many lives and
the potential outcome of many battles . On the other hand,
successful deception could be equally effective .
For Churchill to have taken this step would have been
boldness from "sheer necessity" in the strictest Clausewitian
terms . 11 The risk in not doing so would have to have been
greater than the risk in doing so. The logic of the model is that
if Churchill directed that messages encrypted using Enigma be
transmitted, he would only have done so out of necessity-
when Britain was in dire straits.
"Deception is as old as war itself." 12 Although this statement
is from WWII, it was clearly not a revelation of fact . Sun Tzu
included deception as one of his tenets of warfare when he
said, "All warfare is based on deception ." 13 The modern
complexities of war and the ensuing technological
advancements enhance the means through which deception
can be employed, and WWII was no exception . The use of
deception during WWII has been widely publicized. At least
one book, The Man Who Never Was, was published and a
movie by the same title was made about a single event. 14
Deception and its implementation occur in both the strategic
and tactical spheres. The example documented above was
strategic in its support of the Normandy invasion. Tactical
deception at that time was thought to fall under three headings,
visual, aural (or sonic), and radio . 15 While aural deception might
175
apply in limited fashion to specific engagements, it is logical

that visual and radio deception could be used for broader
objectives at both the strategic and operational levels .
It is not surprising that most information concerning
deception activities remained classified for many years after
the war and is only now coming to the attention of the public .
It appears that most, if not all, of the information concerning
tactical deception has been declassified . This is not the case
with another stratagem used against the Germans, that of
intercepting radio communications and using the Enigma
machine to decipher the message transmissions . While
previously classified documents concerning Ultra are now
largely available to the public, a review of the primary sources
reveals that many still contain blank pages that are marked
"not releasable" while others contain portions that have been
blanked out with no explanation . Thus, even though we know
much more today than we did 15 years ago about these
activities, public access remains unavailable for much of it.
These continuing restrictions may well be the result of
comments made on 15 April 1943 by Col Alfred McCormack in a
memorandum to Col Carter W. Clarke. McCormack, then "Mr
McCormack," had earlier been appointed as special assistant to
the secretary of war to study the uses of Ultra and establish
procedures for making the best use of this source. At the time of
the memorandum, McCormack was deputy chief of the Special
Branch and worked for its chief, Colonel Clarke. The purpose of
the Special Branch was to handle signals intelligence.
McCormack's memorandum consists of 54 pages on the origin,
functions, and problems of the Special Branch, Military
Intelligence Service (MIS) . In this memorandum, McCormack
describes, in his view, Ultra security requirements as follows:
One lapse of security is all that is necessary to dry up a radio

intercept source. Therefore, both on the officer level and below, only
persons of the greatest good sense and discretion should be
employed on this work. This consideration is basic since intercept
information involves a different kind of secrecy than does most other
classified information. It will make no difference a year from now
how much the enemy knows about our present troop dispositions,
about the whereabouts of our naval forces or about other similar
facts that now are clearly guarded secrets. But it will make a lot of
difference one year from now-and possibly many years from
176
INFORMATION WARFARE
now-whether the enemy has learned that in April 1942 we were

reading his most secret codes. Not present secrecy, not merely
secrecy until the battle is over, but permanent secrecy of this
operation is what we should strive for. i s
This secrecy was maintained throughout the war. Only

carefully selected individuals in Washington and in the field
had access to the information produced through these
intercepts . The procedures for use by field commanders and
their personnel, including controls established to protect the
information and its source were laid out in a letter to General
Eisenhower from General Marshall on 15 March 1944 . 17 These
procedures lasted at least through the end of the war.
The Origin of Ultra
Ultra's origin begins with the delivery of a German Enigma

machine to the British by Polish dissidents . The history and
acquisition of the Enigma machine are quite lengthy and
complex. It is sufficient here to reflect that the Poles had
established a successful cryptanalytic effort against the
Germans by the early 1930s, having begun their efforts in the
early 1920s . 18 Using their own copy of the Enigma, they
achieved their first successful break in reading Enigma ciphers
in December 1932 and January 1933 . 19 Between 1933 and
1939, successful reading of Enigma traffic was purely a Polish
achievement .2° Once the Enigma fell into British hands,
however, they took the lead and used it successfully throughout
the war.
Enter Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill had a profound interest in the Ultra traffic

produced from Enigma and required that all important decrypts
be provided to him .21 His interest in codebreaking is
documented as early as November 1924 when, as the chancellor
of the exchequer, he requested access to intercepts .22 In his
request, he stated, "I have studied this information over a long
period and more attentively than probably any other Minister
has done . . . I attach more importance to them as a means of
forming a true judgment of public policy in these spheres than to
any other source of knowledge at the disposal of the State." 23
177
Then in September 1940, after only four months as the prime

minister, he directed he be provided "daily all Enigma
messages . -24 When this traffic became overwhelming in volume,
he backed off to receiving several dozen messages a day. 25
During a visit to Bletchley Park, the headquarters for the British
cryptanalytic organization, he spoke to a crowd of the station
managers and referred to them as "the geese that laid the golden
eggs and never cackled ."26 After the war, Churchill reiterated his
faith in Ultra, describing it as his "secret weapon"27 and stating
his belief that "it had saved England."28
Churchill's concern for security of Ultra was paramount . He
directed that no action be taken in response to Ultra intercepts
unless cover could be provided,29 and he, in fact, repeatedly
allowed naval convoys to come under U-boat attack rather than
risk compromising Ultra security .3o
Churchill was also directly involved in the conduct of deception
operations. He established the London Controlling Section (LCS)
in his headquarters specifically to plan those stratagems
necessary "to deceive Hitler and the German General Staff about
Allied operations in the war against the Third Reich. "31
Not only did Churchill establish the LCS but he also
personally conceived the idea for this organization after a series
of successful uses of deception in the Libyan desert led to the
defeat of Italian forces. In one of those instances, a small British
force of 36,000 men defeated an Italian force of 310,000 using
deceptive measures . Realizing he was outnumbered and about to
be overrun, the British commander used inflatable rubber tanks,
field guns, two-ton trucks, and prime movers to present the
image of a larger force . He employed crowds of Arabs with
camels and horses to drag harrow-like equipment to stir up dust
storms, and he used antiaircraft artillery to keep the Italian
reconnaissance aircraft high-precluding them from sorting out
the actual order of battle on the ground .
The Italians perceived a force on their right flank much larger
than theirs and tried to run. Using only two divisions, the British
captured 130,000 prisoners, 400 tanks, and 1,290 guns. Their
losses were minimal for the magnitude of the conflict500 killed
in action, 1,400 wounded, and 55 missing in action. 32 This
impressive event rocked London and gave credence to further
development of this capability. This action, and others similar to
178
INFORMATION WARFARE
it, convinced Churchill that deception needed an institution so

it could be applied on a broader scale . Thus, LCS was born.
The LCS was the first bureaucracy designed expressly to
deceive . 33 It was "members of the LCS and those of other
British and American secret bureaus" 34 who developed and
executed LCS activities, referring to their weapons as "special
means." 35 In this context, "special means" is "a vaguely
sinister term that included a wide variety of surreptitious,
sometimes murderous, always intricate operations of covert
warfare designed to cloak overt military operations in secrecy
and to mystify Hitler about the real intentions of the allies ." 3s
Back to Ultra-Its Contribution

Ultra proved its value as early as mid-July 1940 when it
provided forewarning of German plans to attack England .
Intercepts at that time revealed Hitler's directive outlining the
planned invasion of England. The invasion was to begin with
an air campaign . These intercepts continued, reaching a point
of two-to three-hundred per day-all being read at Bletchley
Park. On 13 August, when the first air raids began, the British
were more informed of the plans than were many of the
Luftwaffe units . 37
Clearly, Ultra intercepts provided the bulk of intelligence to
the Allies during the war. By June 1944, 90 percent of the
European intelligence summaries provided to Washington
were based on Ultra information. 38 Ultra provided information
on force disposition and German intentions at both the
strategic and tactical levels . Ralph Bennett describes Ultra's
contribution succinctly in his preface to Ultra in the West
For by often revealing the enemy's plans to them before they
decided their own, Ultra gave the Allied Commander an
unprecedented advantage in battle : since Ultra was derived from
decodes of the Wehrmacht's wireless communications, there
could be no doubt about its authenticity, and action based upon
it could be taken with the greatest confidence . So prolific was the
source that at many points the Ultra account of the campaign is
almost indistinguishable from the "total" account . 39
Ultra information also has been described as "more precise,

more trustworthy, more voluminous, more continuous, longer
lasting, and available faster, at a higher level, and from more
179
commands than any other form of intelligence."4° It even

provided information on German intercepts and analysis of
British and American radio networks .41 Taking advantage of this
latter knowledge, the Allies established an elaborate
communications network designed expressly to transmit bogus
traffic that would misinform the Germans of their intentions and
operations. What would have prevented including encrypted
Enigma messages directly to the Germans in this bogus traffic?
Radio Deception
The British and Americans used manipulation through cover

and deception to target specific sources of enemy information .
For example, they released false information to the world press
and staged activities that "made the news ." They deceived enemy
air reconnaissance through the maneuver of real troops, use of
controlled camouflage (both to conceal and intentionally show
indiscretions), dummy equipment, and "Q" lighting (the
positioning of lights to draw bombers to nonexisting airfields) .
Aware that German radio intercept units were targeting their
transmissions, they used a three-pronged strategy against the
German listening stations . First, they prepared notional radio
__traffic to be_ transmitted by sQecial deception troops over nets
established solely for the purpose of deception . Second, they sent
notional radio traffic over authentic operational nets. Finally,
they regulated the genuine traffic passed on authentic
operational nets, creating dead time and peak traffic levels . 42
Signal troops employed in deception activities were specially
trained in these operations43 and thoroughly indoctrinated on
the sensitivities that accompanied their efforts . The following
statement was among the many instructions concerning security
provided to them:
You must realize that the enemy is probably listening to every
message you pass on the air and is well aware that there is a
possibility that he is being bluffed . It is therefore vitally important
that your security is perfect ; one careless mistake may disclose
the whole plan.44
One of the most elaborate schemes employing radio deception

was used in support of the First US Army Group (FUSAG), a
notional, fictive organization headed by Gen George S. Patton,
180
INFORMATION WARFARE
Jr.45 Conceived as a part of Bodyguard,46 the FUSAG was

composed of more than fifty "divisions" located in southeast
England . Aware that the Germans anticipated an Allied attack,
the purpose in establishing a nonexistent FUSAG was to persuade
the Germans that the attack would take place at Pas de Calais.47
The radio net supporting FUSAG represented the following
units: a Canadian army, a US army, a Canadian corps, three US
corps, a Canadian infantry division, a Canadian armored division,
six US infantry divisions, and four US armored divisions .48
The Case
Enigma traffic provided the tip-offs to the planned German

invasion of Britain well in advance . The speed with which
Bletchley Park was reading the German Enigma permitted the
British cryptanalysts to extract intelligence from several hundred
messages a day, even though the Enigma settings were complex
and changed frequently .
The Enigma used wheels that had to be set in the proper order
for the decryption to take place. These settings were usually
changed every 24 hours with minor settings changed more often.
Other minor settings were made with each message. The tip-off
to the receiver for these latter settings was contained in the
transmission .49 The speed with which these messages were
deciphered could have provided the essential information
required by the British to use the machine to other advantages.
From the volume of intercept, it is obvious the British knew
their targets' organizations and frequencies. The traffic would
have provided them with information on message originators,
addressees, associated organizations, and formats-allowing
them to reconstruct necessary elements of the German radio
communications network . The German use of "standard
phrases, double encipherment . . . their lack of an effective,
protective monitoring program, and their unshakable-even
arrogant-confidence in Enigma" 5U made it unlikely they
would use authentication devices in their messages . The
Germans then clearly were vulnerable to deception efforts
using encrypted Enigma messages broadcast by the nets
serving the London Controlling Section. Would Churchill have
taken the risks associated with exploiting this vulnerability?
Dire Straits
The Battle of Britain and the Normandy invasion were two of

the most significant events in WWII . The Battle of Britain,
particularly, represented a critical period for the British . The
defeat of Germany in that battle required the all-out effort by
Britain. The battle began with each side roughly equivalent in
front-line fighters, but it was touch and go until the Luftwaffe
lost its ability to mount sustained attacks . 51 The dangers
facing the British during the massive air raids might have
convinced Churchill at some point that it would be worth the
risk to use the Enigma to intrude on German radio nets.
Perhaps relying on the confusion and disorder he knew existed
among some of the Luftwaffe units,52 his assessment as to the
potential for success could have led to this risky decision.
From 13 August until mid-September, 1940, the Luftwaffe
conducted raids during daylight hours, and Ultra traffic
revealed most, if not all, the targets that were to be hit.
Interestingly, beginning in mid-September and lasting
throughout October, the raids were flown at night, and the
only target references available through Ultra were code
names representing target locations. Had something tipped
the Germans their mail was being read?
On 14 November, Ultra revealed Coventry as a target and at
least one British official believed naming the town instead of
using a code word was a mistake on the part of the
Germans . 53 The use of code words surely made Churchill
nervous, giving him cause to question if British use of Enigma
had been compromised . This concern could account for his
widely reported decision to take no action to evacuate Coventry
other than to alert fire, ambulance, and police units.-'14
The Normandy Invasion was the last critical juncture for the
Allies. A successful invasion would bring Germany and the
Third Reich to their downfall. In preparing for the invasion,
Operation Bodyguard had already been implemented.
The infrastructure for radio deception was in place and in
use. This infrastructure would also have made an excellent
point of origin for intrusion into German radio nets, using the
Enigma to encipher messages for transmission . Schemes
could have been devised using notional traffic sent over the
182
INFORMATION WARFARE
deception nets, which were known to be monitored by the

Germans, to complement intrusion traffic enciphered with
Enigma . Bletchley personnel could prepare the Enigma traffic
and send it to the radio deception units to be transmitted
verbatim on specified frequencies . The personnel employed in
the radio deception were well trained for their purpose and
indoctrinated in the secrecy of their work.
If Churchill saw the invasion as the last big push to defeat
Germany, he may also have viewed selective use of intrusion
as justified and worth the risk. Given the increasing disruption
that occurs with the multiplying intensity of battle, the risk
would have gradually diminished with time during the course
of the fight. As the risk diminished, the opportunities would
have grown. Greater opportunities would have been enticing to
Churchill, especially if there were opportunities to shape the
postwar world.
Much of the history of WWII may need to be rewritten
because of the revelations of Ultra contributions . Revelations
include those already made and those yet to be made .
Considering what we now know about Ultra operations, one
can assume that credit for success in a battle often went to the
wrong party. The men and women at Bletchely Park and other
locations, who were involved in providing advance warning
and other information to Allied forces may never get all the
credit they are due. It is now well known that "Ultra did indeed
shape the character of strategy and operations-particularly
operations . In no other war have commanding generals had
the quality and extent of intelligence provided by Ultra."-9-9
Whether Churchill actually used the Enigma offensively for
the purposes hypothesized here may never be known . If he
did not, maybe the cause was that it was too risky, or just
too tough to do. Maybe the Allies did not possess enough
information on the keying cycles necessary to exploit that
avenue of deception . Or maybe the Allies just missed a good
opportunity. Absent further declassification, we cannot know
for certain . While logic suggests Churchill would have
exploited Enigma, the facts may prove otherwise .
If he did use it in this manner, it would have been information
warfare at its best. Perhaps it was.
183
Impact of Information
Technology on the Gulf War
Although the use and exchange of information have been

critical elements of war since its inception, the Gulf War was
the stage for the most comprehensive use of information, and
information denial, to date. New technologies in this conflict
enhanced the Coalition's ability to exchange and use
information and highlighted the imperative of denying the
adversary his ability to communicate with his forces .
While in large part these technologies were space-dependent,
recent advancements in digital technology permitted the rapid
processing, transmission, and display of information at all
echelons, enabling decision makers to respond rapidly to
developing situations on the battlefield. Some prototype
systems, such as JSTARS, successfully made their trial run
during this conflict, earning their place in history as
contributors to the Coalition success in this war.
Architectures enabling connectivity between these many
systems were nonexistent when Iraq invaded Kuwait; however,
they were put in place during the buildup and supported
Coalition forces for the duration of the war . These
architectures were clearly necessary to effectively control the
myriad activities operating simultaneously in the battlefield.
For example, 11 Airborne Warning and Control System
(AWACS) aircraft controlled 2,240 sorties a day, more than
90,000 during the war, with no midair collisions and no
friendly air engagements . Satellite connectivity permitted this
same air activity to be displayed live in the Pentagon command
center.
JSTARS tracked tanks, trucks, fixed installations, and other
equipment, even though this system had not met operational
capability status. Satellites, microwave, and landlines handled
700,000 phone calls and 152,000 messages a day. Coalition
forces avoided communications interference through
successful deconfliction of more than 35,000 frequencies . Any
attempt to describe the complexities of managing this system
would be an understatement.
184
INFORMATION WARFARE
The Joint Communications-Electronic Operating Instructions

(JCEOI), which was used to allocate frequencies, call signs,
call words, and suffixes for the Gulf War, was published in
over a dozen copies and weighed 85 tons in paper form. 56 This
system was used for both space and terrestrial communications .
Gulf War Space Contributions
Space assets, both military and commercial, belonging to

the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and the USSR
provided the Coalition with communications, navigation,
surveillance, intelligence, and early warning, as well as
offering live television of the war to home viewers around the
world for the first time.
Using some 60 satellites, Coalition forces had access to
secure strategic and tactical communications in-theater and
into and out of the theater of operations . 57 These satellites
bridged the gap for tactical UHF and VHF signals that
heretofore had been limited to terrestrial line of sight. Thus
time-sensitive information could be exchanged between
ground, naval, and air units spread throughout the theater.
Without this capability, the communications required to support
the preparation and distribution of task orders and the
coordinated operations of AWACS, JSTARS, and conventional
intelligence collection in support of force packages in virtual and
near-real-time would have been impossible. Even though there
were still shortfalls at the tactical level in timeliness, precision,
and volume, commanders at all levels had access to
unprecedented communications capabilities .
There are some who credit the capabilities afforded by the
NAVSTAR Global Positioning System (GPS) "as making the single
most important contribution to the success of the conflict."58
Using a constellation of 14 satellites, Coalition forces were able
to locate and designate targets with remarkable precision,
navigate through the naked Iraqi desert better than the Iraqis
themselves, and find troops in distress faster than ever before.
The US Army used the GPS to navigate the Iraqi desert in the
middle of sand storms, surprising even the Iraqis, who
themselves do not venture across it for fear of becoming lost.
185
GPS capability made possible the "left hook" used to defeat

Saddam Hussein's armored divisions .
The use of GPS was, in large part, the result of off-the-shelf
purchases acquired by special contract arrangement ; these
were the same systems that had been designed and marketed
for recreational boat use-thus, technically available to
anyone.59 US troops stationed in Saudi Arabia also received
commercially purchased GPS devices from their relatives . 6o
Access to GPS, and its attendant capabilities, added
tremendously to the morale of Coalition forces.
More than 30 military and commercial surveillance satellites
were used for intelligence gathering during the war.61 These
satellites provided Coalition forces with imagery, electronic
intelligence, and weather data. While these systems provided
precise targeting information on enemy locations, movement,
and capabilities, they were also essential in meeting another
Coalition objective-that of minimizing collateral damage.
Precision targeting combined with the use of precision guided
munitions significantly decreased civilian casualties and left
structures adjacent to targets intact.
Gulf War Intelligence
The rapid deployment of a variety of systems to the Persian

Gulf in response to the crisis there led to a number of
stovepiped organizations, resulting in a voluminous amount of
unfused and uncorrelated information being collected and
disseminated . Also many incompatible systems were deployed .
This lack of integrated, all-source information and the
deficiency in compatibility often placed a burden on recipients
who had neither the personnel nor the skills necessary to put
it all together in one product.
Notwithstanding this limitation, the bulk of which involved
secondary imagery production, the evidence shows that timely,
quality intelligence was available to those units fortunate
enough to have access to the right terminal systems . To a large
degree, the impediment was the result of fielding prototype
systems for which there was little terminal capability .
One of the most prolific producers of information in this
category was the Tactical Information Broadcast Service (TIBS),
186
INFORMATION WARFARE
but a limited number of terminals dictated that only key nodes

could have access to this product. Nevertheless, TIBS and its
cousin, Constant Source, provided timely updates of
intelligence information to various echelons, including wings
and squadrons, directly from collectors and associated ground
processing facilities . 62
The RC-135 Rivet Joint, flying in coordination with its sister
ships, the E-3 AWACS and E-8 JSTARS, flew 24 hours a day to
support the war. Referred to as the "ears of the storm" in
contrast to the AWACS role as "eyes of the storm, "63 the RC-135
provided real-time intelligence to theater and tactical
commanders in the desert and Persian Gulf areas. Specially
trained personnel used on-board sensors to identify, locate, and
report Iraqi emitters that might pose a threat to Coalition forces.
These systems are only a sampling of those deployed to the
theater to provide intelligence support. Reviews and action are
ongoing to resolve the problems resulting from stovepiping and
incompatible systems .
Iraqi Command and Control (Or Lack Thereof)
The Coalition not only recognized the value of information to

its efforts, it also saw the benefits of denying the Iraqi
command and control system its ability to function. The
Coalition identified the Iraqi leadership and Iraqi command,
control, and communications (C3) facilities as the key centers
of gravity.64 While command of the air was the initial key
objective, C3 facilities received priority in targeting.
The Coalition used massive airpower at the onset of
hostilities to accomplish this objective . Targeting strategic
military, leadership, and infrastructure facilities, the Coalition
launched its attack on Iraq on 17 January 1991 . Early
warning sites, airfields, integrated air defense nodes,
communications facilities, known Scud sites, nuclear/
chemical/biological facilities, and electrical power facilities
were attacked by B-52s, Tomahawk land-attack missiles
(TLAMs), F-117s, and helicopter gunships . During the first two
days, the Coalition gave no slack while conducting the most
comprehensive air attack of the war.
187
After only the opening minutes of the war, Iraq had little C3
infrastructure remaining .65 The Coalition success was so
devastating that, as an Iraqi prisoner reported, "Iraqi intelligence
officers were using Radio Saudi Arabia, Radio Monte Carlo, and
the Voice of America as sources to brief commanders ."66 What
little communications capability Iraqi tactical commanders did
have, they used improperly.
Apparently concerned over Coalition communications
monitoring, the Iraqis practiced strict communications security
through near total emission control (EMCON) . While this did
have a negative effect on Coalition signals collection efforts, it
also blinded Iraqi tactical units. One Iraqi brigade commander,
in reflecting his surprise over the speed with which a US Marine
unit overran his unit in Kuwait, showed he had no idea the
Marines were coming even though another Iraqi unit located
adjacent to him had come under attack two hours before.67
Although leadership as a target was difficult to locate and
survived the conflict, the successful attacks against Iraqi C3
essentially put her leadership in the position of having no strings
to pull. Trained to operate under centralized control, Iraqi forces
did not know how to function autonomously. Air defense forces
became fearful of emitting because of their vulnerability to
antiradiation missiles . Believing the army, not the air force, was
the determining force in battle, the Iraqis attempted to shield
rather than use their aircraft . The attempts they did make in
defensive counterair proved rather embarrassing.
Gulf War Conclusions
The Gulf War clearly demonstrated the need for accurate

and timely dissemination of information . Information was the
hub of all activity on the Coalition side, and the lack of it
caused the failure of the Iraqi military to employ its force . The
communications enhancements realized with the advent of
new technologies also brought about new vulnerabilities .
Building defenses to these vulnerabilities is considered by
some to be at odds with increasing the capabilities . The
benefits enjoyed by the Coalition's ability to communicate and
the impact of attacks on Iraqi C3 have been widely publicized and
have to be assumed to be well known by every potential
18 8
INFORMATION WARFARE
adversary . We have to prepare for similar attacks, or attacks of a

different medium, against our own information systems in the
future.
What Does the Future Hold?
There is an information glut. There is a proliferation of

modem-equipped personal computers and local area networks
in military organizations, industrial facilities, and private
homes around the globe. And it does not stop there. For
example, Motorola is working on a 77-satellite constellation
that will provide cellular telephone service from any spot on
earth within five years. With fiber optics supporting these
satellites, entire countries are being wired . Turkey, for
example, has moved into the information age in one big leap .68
As the information glut continues to grow, along with
systems to accommodate it, vulnerabilities to surreptitious
entry are certain to increase. The amount of information being
reported is doubling every 18 months . And this growth is
accelerating . Two years ago, volume was doubling every four
years; three years ago, it took four and a half years.69 While
our capacity to process information at this growth rate seems
limited, technology has a way of catching up-but not
necessarily in time to help for a given situation . It can be
particularly difficult to process large amounts of information
in a readily useable form during intense, crisis situations.
During the Gulf War, 7,000 personnel worked two days to
produce the air tasking order (ATO) for 2,000 aircraft sorties to
be flown on the third day. The ATO began as a 300-page
document developed for transmission to Air Force, Navy, and
Marine aviation, but difficulties at receiving organizations
forced adjustments .
Even using dedicated communications circuits, it took the
Navy three to four hours to receive the ATO. Early on, there was
a 70,000-message backlog, and flash-precedence messages were
taking four to five days to reach their destination-some never
made it. Additionally, the volume of traffic took an inordinate
amount of time to read, let alone respond to .7° It seems the
189
greater our capability to process information, the more

information there is to process .
Former vice-chairman of the JCS, Navy Adm David E .
Jeremiah, sees it this way: "Technology has fueled a change in
communication, [ushering in] an era of information dominance .
Global dominance will be achieved by those that most clearly
understand the role of information and the power of knowledge
that flows from it."71
The services are recognizing this change in communications,
and reacting to it . In the Air Force, information warfare
techniques are being intensively studied and incorporated at the
Air Intelligence Agency (AIA) . AIA looks at information
dominance in terms of the Observe, Orient, Decide, Act (OODA)
loop. The OODA loop represents the decision cycle through
which a warrior at any level must go . As you go from the
strategic level to the tactical level, the time available for making a
decision decreases . At the tip of the spear, it is very short.
According to General Minihan, "As we compare friendly and
adversary OODA loops, it becomes a deadly game of compression
and expansion. We will use information warfare to expand the
adversary's and compress our own action loops. If you can't
think, can't hear, and can't see-and I canyou will lose every
time." 72 This concentration of effort in information technology
will, and should, have an impact on military doctrine.
Admiral Jeremiah has already considered this. He points out
that "it is time to come to grips with a different intersection, an
intersection of technology and strategic thought . . . . I think that
in large measure the product today, technology, drives doctrine
and tactics, and to a major degree drives strategy ." 73
We obviously are far from reaching full understanding of the
impact of information warfare on doctrine, tactics, and strategy.
However, the explosion of information on societies around the
world, and the associated technology, dictate that we find a way
to measure the impact, and look for ways to incorporate the right
level of emphasis on this topic into our thinking. One area of
concern is our propensity to stovepipe activities within our
structures, and the negative influences this can have on military
operations .
Army, Navy, and Air Force senior leaders have voiced concern
with these vertical structures . It has become tradition, for
190
INFORMATION WARFARE
example, to stovepipe several functional areas such as

intelligence, logistics, and acquisition . Stovepiping often
excludes the chain of command from the decision-making
process and impedes synergistic benefits that are available
from integrated operations.
The focus, then, should be on moving from vertical structures,
or stovepipes, to horizontally integrated systems . The expected
result is integrated functional areas, which should provide a
better structure for identifying needs and requirements, and
determining force projection priorities . In the information sphere,
however, this could increase vulnerabilities to unauthorized
access because it disperses the information base on a much
wider scale. Some members of the US military community
recognize that "interdicting, protecting, and exploiting these new
pathways is what RV (information warfare) is all about."74 As we
place more emphasis on this new dimension, we can expect
other nations to follow. Russia will probably be one of the first.
Russian senior military officials have already recognized that
the integration of information technology "could generate radical
changes in the organizational principles of armed forces ."75 The
use of "intellectualized" weapons in the Gulf War by the Coalition
apparently sparked a move in the same direction in Russia.
Russian military experts now believe in "a new axiom to the body
of military art: For combatants contending in military conflict
today, `superiority in computers' is of precisely the same
significance as superiority in tube artillery and tanks was to
belligerents in earlier wars ."76
Furthermore, "superiority in the MTR [military-technical
revolution] proceeds from superiority in ìnformation weapons' :
1) reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition
systems, and 2) ìntelligent' command-and-control systems . ^77
Russian military leaders believe the new "formula for success"
is to "First gain superiority on the air waves, then in the air,
and only then by troop operations."78 As the two former
adversarial world superpowers, who by and large supplied
most of the weapons to other countries around the world,
pursue information warfare as a new realm of combat, it is
almost certain other nations will buy into the trend.
In what is probably only the beginning for nations in conflict,
the Internet has already provided a medium for information
warfare between two belligerent nations. During the recent

border dispute between Ecuador and Peru, Ecuador used the
Internet to publish government bulletins and excerpts from
local media to tell its side of the conflict . In retaliation, Peru
Internet used a gopher site in an attempt to neutralize
Ecuadorian propaganda . [A gopher is an information system
residing on the Internet that knows where everything is and,
through an arrangement of nested menus, allows a user to
continue choosing menu items until the sought-after subject
is located. 79] The resulting verbal skirmish left both nations
working to set up their own gophers .8°
Global information systems will enable ordinary users to
access an extraordinary number of databases, far beyond the
Internet capability of today (which is more than a million files at
databases located at universities and corporate research
centers) . New software technologies permit these accesses to be
conducted autonomously, using "self-navigating data drones ."
These drones, referred to as "knowbots," are released into the
Internet and search for information on their own. They can roam
from network to network, clone themselves, transmit data back
to their origin, and communicate with other knowbots .8 l Given
this capability, one has to wonder, and perhaps be concerned,
about the potential for unauthorized, or at least undesirable,
access to certain databases and computer activities .
Hackers routinely attempt to get into US military systems .
During the Gulf War, hackers from Denmark, Moscow, and Iraq
tried to penetrate these systems.82 Our awareness of these
attempts does not necessarily prove there were no successes of
which we are unaware . And, even if they failed during that
conflict, can we guarantee the security of our systems during the
next war?
These vulnerabilities were revealed recently when a British
teenager using a personal computer at his home hacked his way
into a US military computer network, gained access to files
containing sensitive communications relating to the dispute
with North Korea over international inspections of its nuclear
program, and, after reading them, placed them on the Internet.
His actions made those files available to about 35 million
people. Officials suspect he had access to these computers for
weeks, perhaps even months, before he was caught .
192
INFORMATION WARFARE
Interestingly, once it was known an intruder was in the system

it only took a week to identify him . Unfortunately, the
apparent difficulty was in detecting him. Officials added that
he had also breached other defense systems. 83
Paul Evancoe and Mark Bentley, computer virus experts, have
documented their concerns over our vulnerability to computer
virus warfare (CVW) by other nations. They describe in detail the
vulnerability of computer systems to this danger, and claim that
"CVW is a powerful stand-alone member of the non-lethal
disabling technology family and is likely being developed by
several countries."84
They also point out that the intelligence community and policy
makers do not focus on these threats and generally do not
possess enough technical understanding to recognize CVW as a
real national security threat. They believe CVW remains an
abstract, nontangible concept to most intelligence analysts and
policymakers . Furthermore, they call for legislation outlawing
CVW development, classifying CVW as a weapon internationally,
and including it as part of nonproliferation treaties .
It is unrealistic to believe we could achieve the support of the
international community in this regard, and, with our lead in
technology, we probably do not want to do so. Even if we could
acquire this level of cooperation, and wanted to, enforcement
would be next to impossible. CVW development does not leave
traces as does chemical, biological, and nuclear development .
And our efforts to isolate those are not always met with success .
Some Americans believe there will be no big wars in the future
because there is too much destructive power, and nobody wins .
The interdependence of nations would likely result in as much
damage to an aggressor as to its adversary. Whether this is true
or not, the concept of national security is changyng .85 Among the
threats we face today are terrorism-either state-sponsored or
radical element, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,
localized conflicts, and aggressors that upset the world peace
balance, intense economic competition, and availability of food
and water.
The US military may be called upon to react, in one way or
another, to any of these threats . US military operations can
run the gamut, from civil-military affairs assistance to forcible
entry. More reliance is being placed on communications and
193
intelligence systems in support of these activities, and as these

systems become more interoperable, they may become more
vulnerable . "It is becoming more and more difficult to
distinguish C4 systems from intelligence systems ."86 While
sophisticated antijam systems are being developed and
deployed, these systems are still computer based . Disruption in
one would affect others .
For example, for years we have needed a near-real-time
intelligence system capable of providing targetable accuracy
information to "shooters." The Army expects to have an airborne
and ground-based SIGINT/EW system capable of doing that by
the end of the decade . 87
It seems logical that other existing and developmental
systems might also be interconnected . Some of these might
include the Joint Targeting Network (JTN), the Tactical
Information Broadcast Service (TIBS), Tactical Receive
Equipment Related Applications (TRAP), Senior Ruby, Constant
Source, Quick Look, Over-the-Horizon (OTM systems, and air
and ground-based radar systems. The integration and wide
dispersal of these systems increase the number of vulnerability
points where an adversary might intrude.
The GPS may be one of the most revolutionary systems in our
inventory when you consider the difference it can make in
navigation and geo-positioning of assets. It is available to the
public and anyone with a few hundred dollars can buy into the
system. The benefits, then, that we derive from this capability
may be offset somewhat by use of the system by an adversary.
GPS has improved our navigation and geo-positioning accuracy
in multiples, but we are not the only ones who can use it.
Conclusions
Even though the anticipated national security threats of the

coming decades involve less developed countries, the CVW
threat and other methods of intrusion and disruption are not
necessarily beyond their reach.
Opportunities to deceive and confuse through an elaborate
misinformation scheme along a myriad of information paths
are available to anyone . Information warfare provides a new
194
INFORMATION WARFARE
avenue to employ deception techniques through the use of

multiple paths that create the perception and validation of
truth . These activities can put new light on Winston
Churchill's statement at Tehran in November 1943 concerning
Allied deception efforts, "In war-time, truth is so precious that
she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."88
In this vein, General Minihan proposes the prospect of "an
intelligence analyst manipulating an adversary's command
and control system so that reality is distorted."89 Consider
Marvin Leibstone's projection, ". . . tomorrow's soldier will
depend more than ever on the very well known and trusted
factors of mobility and C3I . 90 Imagine a scenario depicting a
"left hook" in the Iraqi desert that fails because the systems in
use were successfully attacked by CVW, or some other
intrusion method, with the resulting disruption putting US
troops in a flailing posture-facing the unknown and losing
confidence in their operation . One thing is sure. An Iraqi "left
hook" will be difficult to repeat. We have to assume Iraq, and
others, will exploit the GPS to their own advantage .
Information warfare is coming of agel
World War II set the stage, but only with today's technology
can we expect action in this sphere of warfare on a grand
scale . Fortunately, the US military senior leadership is
becoming involved, and, in many cases, taking the lead on this
perplexing issue . With this emphasis, we must carefully
assess the vulnerabilities of the systems we employ. Systems
proposals must be thoroughly evaluated and prioritized by
highest value payoff. This needs to be accomplished through a
more balanced investment strategy by the US military that
conquers our institutional prejudices that favor "killer
systems" weapons. 91 Offensive systems will be at risk if we do
not apply sufficient defensive considerations in this process .
"Me electromagnetic spectrum will be our Àchilles heel' if

we do not pay sufficient attention to protecting our use of the
spectrum and at the same time recognize that we must take
away the enemy's ability to see us and to control his forces ."92
We must also interdict the opportunities for adversaries to
intrude on our systems . Other nations have realized the value
of offensive applications of information warfare ; therefore, we
195
must attack the issue from two directions, offensively and

defensively, with almost equal accentuation .
Information warfare adds a fourth dimension of warfare to
those of air, land, and sea. When the Soviets developed a nuclear
program after World War II, the United States was caught by
surprise. In this new dimension, we must stay ahead.
Notes
1 . Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans . Michael Howard and
Peter Paret (Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 1984), 84.
2 . Sun Tzu, The Art of War, trans. Samuel B. Griffith (New York; Oxford
University Press, 1971), 84.
3. Information Warfare : Pouring the Foundation, Draft, USAF/XO, 19
December 1994, f.
4. Ibid., 3.
5. Alvin and Heidi Toffler, War and Anti-War. Survival at the Dawn of
the 21st Century (Boston : Little, Brown, and Co., 1993), 140 .
6. Ibid, 139 .
7. Craig L. Johnson, "Information Warfare-Not a Paper War," Journal
ofElectronic Defense 17, no. 8, August 1994, 56.
8. Ibid.
9. John H. Petersen, "Info Wars," US Naval Institute Proceedings, 119,
May 1993, 85.
10. Peter Calvocoressi, Top Secret Ultra (New York: Pantheon Books,
1980).3 .
11 . Clausewitz, 191 .
12 . John Mendelsohn, ed., Covert Warfare : Intelligence,
Counterintelligence, and Military Deception During the World War 11 Era 18
(New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1989), 1 . Note: This book is the last in
a series of 18 volumes on covert warfare edited by Mendelsohn. The content
of the series is primarily composed of declassified documents residing in the
National Archives. These documents included classifications up through
TOP SECRET ULTRA. The quoted material in this paper from this series is
usually taken from the copied material of the original documents .
13. Sun Tzu, 66.
14. See Ewen Montagu, The Man Who Never Was (New York: J.B.
Lippincott Co., 1954).
15. Mendelsohn, chap. 1, 1 .
16. Ibid ., vol . 1, Ultra Magic and the Allies, chap. 8, "Origins, Functions,
and Problems of the Special Branch, MIS," 27.
17. Mendelsohn, vol . 1, chap. 4, "Synthesis of Experiences in the Use of
ULTRA Intelligence by U.S. Army Field Commands in the European Theater
of Operations," 4.
18. Wladyslaw Kozaczuk, ENIGMA (University Publications of America,
Inc., 1984) chapter 2.
19. Ibid., 20-21.
20. Ibid., 95.
196
INFORMATION WARFARE
21 . Ibid ., 165 .
22. David Kahn, Seizing the ENIGMA : Vie Race to Break the German
U-Boat Codes, 1939-1943 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co ., 1991), 184 .
23. Ibid.
24 . Ibid.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid .
27. James L. Gilbert and John P. Ginnegan, eds ., U.S. Army Signals
Intelligence in World War IL A Documentpry History, Center of Military
History, United States Army (Washington, D .C. : GPO, 1993), 175 .
28 . Ibid., 175 .
29 . Kahn, 276.
30. Gilbert and Ginnegan, 176 .
31 . Anthony Cave Brown, Bodyguard of Lies (New York: Harper & Row,
1975),2 .
32 . Ibid., 50.
33. Ibid., 45.
34. Ibid., 2.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid.
37. Kozaczuk, 156-66 .
38. Mendelsohn, vol . 1, chap. 3, "Use of CX/MSS ULTRA by the U.S. War
Department, 1943-1945," 17.
39. Ralph Bennett, Ultra in the West: The Normandy Campaign 1944-45
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1979), viii.
40. Kahn, 276 .
41 . Bennett, 42.
42. Mendelsohn, vol. 15, Basic Deception and the Normandy Invasion,
chap. 4, "Cover and Deception, Definition and Procedure, Exhibit '3' of C&D
Report ETO," 1 and 2.
43. Mendelsohn, vol. 15, chap. 6, "Cover and Deception Recommended
Organization, 8 September 1944, Exhibit '5' of C&D Report ETO," 2 .
44. Ibid., vol. 15, chap. 10, "Operations in Support of Neptune: (B)
FORTITUDE NORTH, 23 February 1944, Exhibit `6' of C&D Report ETO,"
Appendix 'C' to SHAEF/ 18216/ 1 /Ops dated 10th March 1944.
45. Jozef Garlinski, The Enigma War (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,
1980), 159-160 . After twice striking "shell-shocked" soldiers, Patton had
gotten into trouble. General Eisenhower needed a place to put him, and,
knowing the Germans kept track of his finest generals, considered Patton
the perfect choice for this notional outfit . In Eisenhower's mind, placing Patton
in charge would make this concoction more believable to the Germans .
46. Brown, 10. BODYGUARD was the cover name given to the deception
plan developed for NEPTUNE, the cover term for the Normandy invasion. It-
was taken from Churchill's statement at Tehran, "In war time, truth is so
precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."
47. Garlinski, 160 .
48. Mendlesohn, vol. 15, chap. 11, "Operations in Support of NEPTUNE :
(C) FORTITUDE SOUTH I, Exhibit '6' of C&D Report ETO," appendix B, pt. I.
49. Bennett, 4.
197
BATILEFIELD OF THE FUTURE
50. Diane T. Putney, ed., ULTRA and the Army Air Forces in World War H
(Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, United States Air Force, 1987),
97 .
51 . H.P .Willmott The Great Crusade--A New Complete History of the
Second World War, (New York: Free Press, 1989) 108-9.
52. Kozaczuk, 166.
53. Ibid., 167.
54. Ibid., 167.
55. Putney, 35. This statement was made by Associate Justice of the
Supreme Court Lewis F. Powell, Jr., in an interview conducted by Dr
Richard H. Kohn, chief, Office of Air Force History, and Dr. Diane T. Putney,
chief, Air Force Intelligence Service Historical Research Office . During WWII,
Justice Powell was one of a select group of people chosen to integrate Ultra
information into other intelligence. As an intelligence officer in the Army Air
Force, he served with the 319th Bomb Group, Twelfth Air Force, and the
Northwest African Air Forces. He was on General Carl Spaatz's United States
Strategic Air Forces staff as Chief of Operational Intelligence, as well as
being General Spaatz's Ultra officer, towards the end of the war . He made at
least one visit to Bletchely Park where he stayed and worked for several
weeks.
56. David L. Jones and Richard C. Randt, "The Joint CEOI," in The First
Information War. The Story of Communications, Computers and Intelligence
Systems in the Persian Gulf War (Fairfax, Va. : AFCEA International Press,
October 1992), 162.
57. Sir Peter Anson and Dennis Cummings, "The First Space War: The
Contribution of Satellites to the Gulf War," in Alan D. Campen, ed., The First
Information War: The Story of Communications, Computers and Intelligence
Systems in the Persian Gulf War (Fairfax, Va. : AFCEA International Press,
October, 1992), 12 1.
58. Ibid., 127 .
59. Peterson, 85.
60. Anson and Cummings, 127 .
61 . Ibid., 130 .
62. James R. Clapper, Jr ., "Desert War : Crucible for Intelligence
Systems," in Alan D. Campen, ed., The First Information War. The Story of
Communications, Computers and Intelligence Systems in the Persian. Gulf
War (Fairfax, Va. : AFCEA International Press, October 1992) 82.
63. Robert S. Hopkins III, "Ears of the Storm," in Alan D. Campen, ed.,
The First Information War: 71w Story of Communications, Computers and
Intelligence Systems in the Persian Gulf War (Fairfax, Va. : AFCEA
International Press, October 1992) 65.
64. Thomas A. Keaney and Eliot A. Cohen, Gulf War Air Power Survey
Summary Report (Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, 1993), 40.
65 . Alan D. Campen, "Iraqi Command and Control : The Information
Differential," in Alan D. Campen, ed., The First Information War: The Story of
Communications, Computers and Intelligence Systems in the Persian Gulf
War (Fairfax, Va. : AFCEA International Press, October 1992), 17 1.
66. Ibid., 172 .
67. Ibid., 174 .
198
INFORMATION WARFARE
68. Petersen, 88.

69. Ibid., 89.
70. Ibid., 86.
71. John G. Roos, "InfoTech InfoPower," Armed Forces Journal International
June 1994, 31 .
72. "Information Dominance Edges Toward New Conflict Frontier," Signal
International Journal 48, no. 12, August 1994, 37.
73. Roos, 31 .
74. Johnson, 55.
75. Mary C. FitzGerald, The Impact of the Military-Technical Revolution on
Russian Military Affairs, vol. 2, Hudson Institute, submitted in partial
fulfillment of Contract #MDA903-91-C-0190, HI-4209, 20 August 1993, 98.
76. Ibid., 100 .
77 . Ibid.
78. Ibid.
79. Tom Lichty, Ilie Official America Online for Windows Tour GUOP, 2d
ed., ver. 2, 325 .
80. Newsweek, 20 February 1995,12 .
81 . Peterson, 89 .
82 . Army Times, 54, no . 43, 23 May 1994, 28.
83. Baltimore Sun, 9 January 1995, 3.
84. Paul Evancoe and Mark Bentley, "CVW-Computer Virus as a
Weapon," Military Technology 18, no. 5, May 1994, 40.
85. Petersen, 90.
86. Darryl Gehly, "Controlling the Battlefield," Journal of Electronic
Defense, 6, no. 6, June 1993, 48.
87. Gen Jimmy D. Ross, "Winning the Information War," Army, February
1994, 32.
88. Brown, 10.
89. "Information Dominance Edges Toward New Conflict Frontier,"
Signal, 48, no. 12, August 1994, 39.
90. Marvin Leibstone, "Next-Generation Soldier: Ditched, or Digitized?,"
Military Technology 18 no. 7, July 1994, 59.
91 . "Army Plan Fosters Dynamic Information War Framework," Signal
International Journal 48, no. 3, November 1993, 56.
92 . Ross, 28.
Overview: Biological Warfare Issues
Biological warfare (BW) is the use of disease to harm or kill

an adversary's military forces, population, food or livestock.
Living organic germs, like anthrax, are a major example of
biological weapons. Another is byproducts of organisms,
known as toxins. An example is botulism . Biological agents are
much deadlier, pound for pound, than chemical agents. It has
been estimated that 10 grams of anthrax could kill as many
people as a ton of the nerve agent Sarin.
Lt Col Terry Mayer traces the history of biological warfare,
including its use during World War II by Japanese forces in
China . During early phases of the Cold War the United States,
as a potential retaliatory measure against the USSR, developed
a BW program. However, in 1969 President Nixon terminated
the program and announced US unilateral disarmament of
offensive BW weapons. A worldwide Biological and Toxin
Weapons Convention (BWC) followed, and among the 118
signers are the United States, Russia, and Iraq. However, there
is evidence that Moscow continued to manufacture anthrax at
least into 1992 . Iraq now admits that it, too, had a BW
program until 1991 .
The BW problem was dramatically highlighted during Desert
Storm when Iraq was discovered not only to have a nuclear
weapons program, but also an elaborate chemical and
biological warfare effort. US government analysts are skeptical
about whether or not Iraq actually destroyed its biological
warfare agents and equipment in 1991 as they claim. Some
believe that Baghdad may still have a large BW program
intact . Unclassified information from the Defense Nuclear
Agency documents indicate that numerous rogue states-
those that support state sponsored terrorism like Iran, Iraq,
Libya, and North Korea-have or are pursuing BW programs .
Colonel Mayer indicates that BW agents of other states are
very difficult, if not impossible, for allied intelligence services
to detect in research, production, transit, or employment
phases . In addition to detection shortfalls, Mayer's essay
questions whether the United States is unable to effectively
protect its military forces (medically and nonmedically) from
20 1
BW weapons, conduct an effective preemptive counteroffensive

strike against enemy BW facilities, or protect the civilian
population against a terrorist BW attack .
Robert Kadlec, M.D ., (Lt Col, USAF) shows that the ongoing
revolution in biotechnology has also made possible medical
products readily transferable to biological warfare applications.
Some vaccines are available, but do not have wide distribution .
He contends that the proliferation of BW weapons provides
less-developed countries capabilities that could be as lethal and
devastating as nuclear weapons . BW weapons are inexpensive,
easy to produce, can be disguised as natural events (for example
as agricultural sprayers), are hard to detect or preempt, and are
hard to defend against once employed .
Dr Kadlec analyzes the current BW threat and cites Office of
Technology Assessment (OTA) findings which emphasize
how certain unstable states have governments seeking
WMD, including BW. The OTA analysis suggests that BW
is the cheapest and most easily produced of all the
weapons of mass destruction . Indeed some third world
regimes see BW as a "potential equalizer" to offset
Western conventional or nuclear forces .
In his essay on biological warfare as a possible means of
attacking an adversary's agricultural base, Dr Kadlec shows how
"the existence of natural occurring or endemic agricultural pests
or diseases and outbreaks permits an adversary to use BW with
plausible denial." Dr Kadlec shows instances of how BW could
be used in attacks on livestock and plants including anthrax,
glanders, rinderpest, and wheat rust.
He notes instances of naturally occurring infestations of
agriculture . For example, the whitefly infestations of California
crops in 1981 and 1991 caused $500 million worth of damage .
The Russian wheat aphid cost the United States $600 million.
Similarly, in other cases the Mediterranean fruit fly caused
$900 million in damage and lost revenues to American crops.
To guard against such pests, over $7 billion is spent every year
on pesticides.
Dr Kadlec then provides a series of illustrative and
hypothetical scenarios of how biological warfare could be
waged against certain food suppliers : spraying a corn seed
blight over the Midwestern United States from commercial
202
BIOLOGICAL WARFARE ISSUES
airliners to force massive corn imports; deliberately spreading

a rapidly breeding grape louse across California wine country;
deliberately sabotaging Pakistan's cotton crop with insects ;
etc. Thus, while not lethal attacks on human beings, such BW
attacks against a country's food supplies or crops could be
very damaging. Such BW attacks against a competitor's
economic assets could open an unfortunate new chapter in the
history of economic warfare.
Chapter 8
The Biological Weapon : A Poor

Nation's Weapon of Mass Destruction
Lt Col Terry N. Mayer, USAF
Prologue-4 January
This is a CNN special report. This just in . The Center for

Disease Control hasjust declared that an epidemic is widespread
in Miami, Florida. Doctors have not yet diagnosed the specific
cause of the rampant disease, but the illness initially resembles a
chest cold that progresses into pneumonia-like symptoms. It then
progresses rapidly into fever and shortness of breath What is
especially peculiar about this epidemic is that all the patients who
have sought medical attention attended the Orange Bowl football
game on New Year's Day. Authorities have asked that anyone
who went to that game seek medical care if cold-like symptoms
appear. Stay tuned to CNNforfurther developments on this story.
Elsewhere in the news . . .
The Biological Warfare Contest
This is a notional, yet frightening illustration of what the

first signs of a biological warfare (BNq attack might sound like.
This scenario is a plausible example of an attack a terrorist or
deranged person might conduct using off-the-shelf technology
and readily available biological warfare agents. The "concept of
operations" in this attack consisted of using several insect
bombs (the kind where you push the button, it starts spraying,
and you leave the house for two hours) and modifying them by
filling the canister with anthrax bacteria bought through a
mail order specimen company in the United States. If that
doesn't sound credible, please note that Saddam Hussein
bought his original anthrax culture from a mail order house in
205
the United States and had it shipped overnight mai11l This is

just a sample of many plausible scenarios that could employ
biological warfare agents in a terrorist or combat operation.
The spring 1995 chemical warfare attack in the subways of
Tokyo is a glaring example of just how susceptible modern
society is to this kind of insidious attack. It does not take a
great deal of imagination to conceive of other situations and
vulnerabilities that would make very lucrative targets for a
biological weapons strike . If an attacker has access to the
target area, a simple mechanism to aerosolize a substance,
and a basic biology laboratory, the prerequisites are complete .
This is not a high-tech arena that requires specialized
equipment or core material as do nuclear weapons ; this is
basic college biology coupled with motivation . While the use of
this weapon has not been prevalent in recent years, the threat
is real, the United States' vulnerability is clear, and the ability
to counter the biological weapon is almost nil.
A study of biological warfare raises some fundamental
questions :
" Just what is biological warfare?
" What is the history of biological warfare and how
important is it today?
" What biological warfare agents are available for use today?
" What is the biological warfare threat?
" How capable are we of coping with the threat?
" What policy should the United States follow to close the
gap between the threat and the capability?
The purpose of this article is to raise the awareness level
about a very real and probable threat that has not been dealt
with effectively . The author hopes to bring the issue to the
front burner for study and to apply resources to resolving the
tough problems . While the paper identifies where precious
resources should be focused, it does not profess to have all the
answers to the very difficult biological warfare dilemma.
First, what is biological warfare in layman's terms? From a
military perspective, it is the intentional use of diseases to affect
an adversary's military force, population, crops, or livestock.
Certainly, a terrorist biological campaign could target those
same kinds of objectives, depending on the perceived purpose of
206
THE BIOLOGICAL WEAPON
the terrorist. There are two basic categories of biological

warfare agents . Microorganisms are living organic germs, such
as anthrax (bacillus anthrax) . Second, toxins are the
byproducts of living organisms, or effectively natural poisons,
such as botulism (botulinum toxin) which is a byproduct of
growing the microorganism clostridium botulinum .2 These are
only two examples of biological warfare agents, although these
are especially prevalent and virulent examples . There are many
other natural and man-made agents that have been used
throughout history .
Historical Perspective
Biological warfare is not a twentieth century development ; it

has been an effective combat weapon for centuries . As early as
1346 A.D., Tartars held the walled city of Kaffa under siege and
catapulted plague-infested bodies into the city.3 Were the
Tartars successful in using disease as a means to break the
siege? Yes. Not only did illness cause Kaffa to capitulate, but
some medical historians speculate this event resulted in the
bubonic plague epidemic that spread across medieval Europe
between 1347 and 1351, killing 25 million people. 4
Three hundred years later, during the French and Indian
War, the English offered blankets to Indians holding Fort
Carillon . The English suspected the Indians were loyal to the
French and exposed the blankets to the smallpox virus before
their apparent altruistic overture. The Indians began to fall ill,
and after an epidemic spread through the fort, the English
attacked, defeating the incapacitated force . The British gained
control of Fort Carillon and renamed it Fort Ticonderoga. 5
Throughout history, many examples may be found illustrating
the use of natural diseases in war to place an adversary in a
position of disadvantage. For example, dumping bodies into
water supplies has been fairly common for centuries . Two
thousand years ago, Romans fouled many of their enemies'
water sources by throwing the corpses of dead animals into the
wells.s During the American Civil War, Confederate soldiers shot
horses and other farm animals in ponds in an effort to
contaminate the water supply of the Union forces. 7
207
While there was some evidence of biological warfare in World

War 18 , the interwar years saw a new interest in the use of
disease as a weapon . Paradoxically, probably the two most
active programs started as a result of an international
initiative to ban biological warfare agents. Both Japan and the
United Kingdom recognized that since biological warfare was
horrifying enough to outlaw, it probably would make an
effective weapon . Both countries had very robust programs as
early as 1932 and 1934, respectively. 9
There is evidence that Japan tested biological warfare
agents on prisoners of war and that they actually used them
on the population of China. 1° To spread the plague, they
dropped flea-infested debris over 11 cities in mainland China.
The result was a bubonic plague epidemic in China and
Manchuria." While these attacks caused casualties, the
weapons did not function reliably and ultimately resulted in
very little strategic impact that affected the war. 12
When the Britain learned of the Japanese biological warfare
program, they put significantly more emphasis toward
developing their own BW capability. Most of their testing was
conducted on an island called Gruinard off the northwest
coast of Scotland. They concentrated their development and
testing efforts on the lethal effects of anthrax. Scientists used
sheep as victims to evaluate the effectiveness of the disease,
and they infected literally thousands of animals . As a result of
the huge amount of anthrax agent dispersed on the island and
the large number of sheep infected, the British could not
effectively decontaminate the island after they stopped the
testing program. Consequently, Gruinard is still considered
contaminated and is off limits, demonstrating the persistence
of anthrax as a biological weapon. 13
The British soon combined their biological weapons
development efforts with Canada and the United States . Even
though there were Allied operational plans to employ biological
weapons during World War II, there is no evidence to indicate
they were actually used on a large scale . There is, however,
strong evidence that Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the Nazi
security service, was assassinated with a grenade that had been
contaminated with biological warfare agents (typhoid fever). 14
208
Biological Warfare in the Cold War
After World War II and during the Korean War, the focus, at
least from the United States perspective, was on building a BW
retaliatory capability. The US developed an anticrop bomb and
delivered it to the Air Force in 1951 . It could have been used to
attack North Korean rice fields, reducing a significant source
of nutrition for the population . 15 North Korea accused the
United States of using biological agents during the Korean
War; the United States denied the accusation, and there was
no substantive proof offered in the open literature. i s
Following the Korean War, the United States invigorated the
biological warfare program in 1956 after Marshal Zhukov
announced to the Soviet Congress that chemical and biological
warfare weapons would be used as weapons of mass destruction
in future wars. This was a dramatic shift in Soviet policy and the
cold war philosophy. 17 The fundamental concept of United
States biological warfare operations changed as a result.
During the Korean War, the biological capability was
maintained primarily for retaliation in the event an adversary
employed a biological agent against United States or allied
forces . The prevailing philosophy was that the threat of
retaliation in kind would deter the use of these kinds of
weapons . After the new Soviet pronouncement, the United
States concept changed to employment upon executive order
by the president of the United States . 18 Effectively, this
mimicked the Soviet position, implying that the United States
might use biological weapons in situations other than
straightforward retaliation. This change in policy boosted the
biological warfare research effort in the United States.
The bulk of the research was conducted at Fort Detrick in
Maryland . It was during this "boost phase" that United States
vulnerability was clearly demonstrated with simulated covert
biological warfare attacks on at least three cities subway
systems . Surrogate biological agents were introduced into the
air vents of the underground systems . Samples were then
taken to determine how widespread the dissemination would
be . The results demonstrated that large numbers of the
populace would be exposed to infectious doses under such an
attack . 19 This experiment supported a similar test that took
20 9
place in 1950 when an aerosol cloud of a simulated biological

agent was sprayed off the coast of San Francisco. The test
results showed that nearly 100 percent of the population had
inhaled potentially lethal doses.2 °
In 1969, President Nixon changed the United States policy
on biological warfare. During a visit to Fort Detrick, he
announced that the United States was terminating research
on biological warfare and was unilaterally disarming any
capability to conduct offensive biological warfare . By 1972, the
United States biological weapons stockpile was completely
destroyed. 21 This gesture by the United States was the catalyst
for the world community to embrace the Biological and Toxin
Weapons Convention (BWC) . A total of 118 countries (including
the USSR and Iraq) signed up to abide by the BWC, which
directs that the signatories will "never in any circumstances
develop, produce, stockpile, or otherwise acquire or retain any
biological weapons ."22
During this time, the Second Indochina War was raging.
However, there is no clear evidence that biological warfare
agents were used in this conflict . Agent Orange, a herbicide,
was a chemical-based agent that saw wide use, but biological
weapons per se were not used .23 While the United States
biological warfare program was flourishing and even after our
unilateral biological warfare disarmament, there is evidence
that the Soviet program was thriving, although they had
signed the BWC in 1972 . In the late 1970s and early 1980s,
there were reports that the Soviets used biological weapons in
Laos, Kampuchea, and Afghanistan. While widely reported as
a program called "Yellow Rain," these allegations were never
proven .24
In 1978, Georgi Markov, a popular writer and Bulgarian
exile, was walking to the BBC in London where he broadcast
to his homeland from Radio Free Europe . As he was walking,
he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his leg. Turning around, he
confronted a man picking up an umbrella . The man apologized
and went on his way. Markov took ill that night and died
several days later. The autopsy found a small metal pellet
coated with ricin, a biological toxic substance derived from the
castor oil plant. 25
210
Another incident occurred in April 1979 when a loud

explosion was reported from a research compound in
Sverdlovsk, USSR. Over the next few days, reports of an
outbreak of anthrax surfaced . The United States claimed that
the outbreak was the result of an accident in a biological
warfare production plant. The USSR vehemently denied the
accusations, claiming it was caused by tainted black market
meat and poor hygiene among the population. In the media
and technical literature before 1992, many Western journalists
and scientists argued that the facts supported the Soviet
claims . 26
However, in 1992, Russian President Boris Yeltsin admitted
that the Sverdlovsk incident was actually a biological warfare
accident involving anthrax . 27 Thereafter, President Yeltsin
signed a decree that recommitted Russia to the Biological and
Toxin Weapons Convention . But in 1994, three defectors
revealed an ongoing Russian biological warfare program that
concentrates on a "superplague" for which, reportedly, the
West has no antidote. President Yeltsin claimed he didn't know
about any biological warfare programs . The defectors verified
his claim and inferred that the military is running the program
without Yeltsin's knowledge or consent.28
Biological Terrorism
In 1984, the French authorities made a startling discovery

that demonstrates how vulnerable the world is to biological
terrorism . The Paris Police raided a residence suspected of
being a safe house for the German Red Army Faction . As they
conducted their search, they found documents that revealed a
strong working knowledge of lethal biological agents. As the
police continued the search to the bathroom, they came across
a bathtub containing many flasks filled with what turned out
to be Clostridium Botulinum, the microorganism that
produces botulism, one of the most lethal biological
substances known to man.29
On 20 March 1995, the Tokyo subway system was attacked
with chemical warfare agents by, allegedly, a cult called the
Aum Shinri Kyo, or the Supreme Truth . This incident killed at
least 11 people and injured as least 5,500 others. 30 Five

different subway cars were struck simultaneously by
individuals leaving canisters dispersing a Nazi-developed nerve
agent called Sarin. 3 l This is an exceptionally significant event
because it strikes at the core of society with furtive lethal
gases, exposing glaring vulnerabilities and fomenting terror
among the population. As one victim of the subway attack
said, "We're just innocent, ordinary people . It frightens me to
think how vulnerable we are."32
On the 28th of March, Tokyo police also found large
quantities of the biological warfare agent Clostridium
Botulinum during one of several raids on Aum Shinri Kyo
facilities. 33 This discovery clearly demonstrates that a terrorist
organization had the resolve, the biological agent, and the
wherewithal to conduct a horrendous biological attack against
an unprotected population . As 7tme magazine said, " . . .
garden-variety madness had got access to weapons of
terror. "34
BW and the 1991 Gulf War
These recent world biological warfare events have been

alarming, but what really brought the biological warfare issue
into the spotlight of the public's eye was the experience in
Desert Storm, the Persian Gulf War. By the time of the Iraqi
invasion into Kuwait, it was widely acknowledged that Iraq
had a biological warfare program, concentrated on very toxic
botulinum toxin and very resilient anthrax. 35 This assessment
was derived from a compilation of several sources and
indicators, the most dramatic being an Iraqi defector who was
a microbiologist. He told a British newspaper correspondent
that as early as 1983 Iraqi scientists were 'developing and
testing biological warfare agents:
There were many strains, botulism, salmonella, and anthrax .

Friends told me they had found a way to make anthrax even
more toxic . I know they experimented on sheep with Clostridium
Botulinum type C (the source of botulinum toxin) . 3s
212
The defector said he personally had done research and

solved difficult technical problems relating to the
weaponization and deployment of biological warfare agents.37
This has since been confirmed officially by a representative of
Saddam Hussein's present government . On 2 August 1990,
when Iraqi army invaded Kuwait, the Iraqis had spent close to
$100 million on their offensive biological warfare program and
had a significant stockpile of biological warfare agents . 38
Saddam Hussein announced "loud and clear" that this war
would be the "mother of all wars," implying a no-holds-barred
engagement.39 This was the first time since World War II that the
United States had faced a military adversary with a highly
probable biological warfare capability and the resolve to use it.4o
The United States was challenged not only with how to
protect the military forces but how to preempt the use of
Saddam's biological warfare arsenal. Plans for force protection
included protective equipment and vaccinations against
probable biological warfare threats .41 In addition, planners
were challenged to determine a mechanism to destroy the
biological warfare stockpiles before Saddam could deploy
them . Dropping a precision-guided bomb on the suspected
storage bunkers would have been easy enough. The real
challenge was destroying the viability or utility of the biological
weapons without spreading the agents and causing massive
collateral damage in terms of human lives. The military was
simply not prepared for this eventuality.
Several tests were conducted over a very short time to try to
find the right kind of enhanced munitions or bomb that would
render the biological warfare agent unusable to the Iraqis and
not release lethal agents into the atmosphere . The crash
program was not fruitful . However, in the effort, computer
modeling showed that the design of the suspected biological
weapons storage bunkers offered a bombing approach that
might inhibit the release of the agents. In the eleventh hour,
this concept detailing specific fusing, type of bomb, and angle
of attack was telephoned to the Central Command CENTCOM
planners in Riyadh. 42 All suspected bunkers were attacked,
and there was no confirmed collateral damage as a result of
released biological agent . There was, however, one
unconfirmed news report of several incidents of illness and
213
death in Iraqi guards after the coalition bombed a biological

warfare facility in Baghdad .43
In the end, it appears that Saddam Hussein did not use
biological weapons during Desert Storm. While the Iraqi
rationale may never be known for certain, it is likely that they
were deterred by public signals like the one Secretary of
Defense Dick Cheney announced during a news conference on
23 December 1990 . 44. . . Cheney said that "were Saddam
Hussein foolish enough to use weapons of mass destruction,
the US response would be absolutely overwhelming and it
would be devastating."45
In an even more direct and unambiguous message, a 5
January 1991 letter President George Bush said to Saddam
Hussein : "The United States will not tolerate the use of
chemical or biological weapons . . . The American people would
demand the strongest possible response . You and your
country will pay a terrible price if you order unconscionable
acts of this sort . "4s
After the cease fire, Iraq officialsadmitted having a biological
warfare program that they said had only progressed to the
research stage . Inspectors found evidence of a robust
biological warfare production capability, but could not
specifically link it to the biological warfare program .
However, there was overwhelming circumstantial evidence
that an offensive biological warfare production and
weaponization program did exist.47 Like the Soviet Union, Iraq
had previously signed the BWC . The bad news is that United
Nations inspectors were not able to locate Saddam's biological
stockpile. 48 Saddam's representatives have since admitted to
the United Nations inspectors that they had a sizable cache of
anthrax and botulism agents, but they claim to have destroyed
it to avoid having germs spread over the Iraqi countryside by
allied bombing attacks.
Having witnessed the bold Iraqi deceptive effort regarding their
nuclear research program, the world has every reason to believe
that Saddam Hussein still has a large amount of biological
warfare agents at his disposal today.49 On 24 February 1993,
former CIA Director James Woolsey told the Senate Govern-
mental Affairs Committee : "Iraq's biological weapons capability
is perhaps of greatest immediate concern . Baghdad had an
21 4
advanced program before Desert Storm, and neither war nor

inspections have seriously degraded this capability . The
dual-use nature of biological weapon equipment and
techniques makes this the easiest program to hide."5 °
The Biological Warfare Threat
With the public expose of active Russian and Iraqi biological

warfare programs, the threat of these weapons looms large on
the horizon . There are official, open-source estimates that
between 10 and 20 countries either have, want, or are
thinking about starting a biological weapons capability .51
However, there is more to the threat than just countries that
have the capability . What types of agents are a threat and how
will they mature given new technology? And, does the
insidious nature of biological agents pose a threat?
BW Nation States
Some of the countries suspected in open sources of having
or wanting a biological warfare program include Russia, Syria,
Iraq, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Israel, Egypt, Cuba, Taiwan,
China, Romania, Bulgaria, Pakistan, India, and South Africa.52
There are real concerns with this list. First, some of these
nations have been associated in the past with state-supported
terrorism. This fact raises the probability of a biological warfare
terrorist attack .
Second, many of these countries reside in regions of
historical instability or emerging instability . And third, with
the economic distress in the former Soviet Union, there is a
possibility that its biological warfare weapons experts will look
for more prosperous employment by building biological
warfare programs elsewhere for the highest bidder .
Fortunately, as of early 1994, the CIA had no indication that
this biological warfare brain drain is occurring . 53
Biological Warfare Technology

The degree of sophistication of each country's research
program will determine how advanced biological agents will be.
21 5
Even the most rudimentary program will likely have lethal

agents that have been a threat for some time. Botulism and
anthrax (mentioned earlier) are high-probability candidates
that are difficult to reckon with. In addition, the revolution in
biotechnology may produce other agents that are even more
toxic and resilient . Without getting into the technical aspects,
relatively minor molecular adjustments may produce a more
toxic, fast acting, and stable biological agent. 54
There is also a possibility that genetic engineering may
produce a weapon that is unique and can only be protected
against with a unique vaccine .55 These two examples of
potential developments in biological warfare will give this
weapon a great deal more utility, especially on the battlefield .
A more stable agent that produces an accelerated reaction
would provide the tactical commander with a viable tactical
weapon.
Additionally, if the commander could deploy biological
agents against an enemy while friendly troops remained
invulnerable, the biological option would become much more
attractive as a battlefield weapon . There is also some
speculation that a toxic agent could be produced that would
target only a specific genetic makeup, giving an attacker the
capability to discriminate among age, gender, racial or
behavior groups as target sets .56 Following the Tokyo subway
attack, it has come to light that the Aum Shinri Kyo had
recently ordered sophisticated molecular design software. The
purpose of this type of software is to reengineer the molecular
structure of chemicals or microorganisms to make them
stronger or more dangerous . 57 Could it be that this fanatic cult
was planning to use this software to genetically reengineer
their biological or chemical agents?
Stealthy BW
Now the really sobering partbiological warfare agents are

very difficult, if not impossible, to detect while they are in the
research, production, transit, or employment phases . Normal
biological warfare research facilities resemble completely
legitimate biotechnical and medical research facilities. The
same production facilities that can produce biological warfare
216
agents may also produce wine and beer, dried milk, food, and
agricultural products . 58 The challenge this presents is in
distinguishing legitimate production plants from illicit ones.
It becomes nearly impossible to identify the locations and
facilities that are actually producing biological warfare
weapons . This needs to be done, obviously, in order to
confidently highlight a violation of the BWC, or, if necessary,
should all peaceful remedies fail, preemptively strike a
biological weapons production or storage facility.
In addition, biological warfare agents are virtually
undetectable while they are in transit . In other words, if a
terrorist wanted to carry the biological agent into the United
States in a carry-on bag or checked luggage, there is no
mechanism using routine customs, immigration, drug scan, or
bomb search procedures to identify the agent. The only way to
find it would be a physical search by a very well trained and very
lucky searcher.59 Similarly, the threat on the battlefield is almost
as insidious, with very little present detection capability.
Desert Storm represents a recent experience in which the
United States needed the ability to detect biological warfare
agents to give early warning for protective measures . With few
exceptions, the capability was not there . The limited capability
that was deployed was the result of a crash program to
produce a biological detector-it was an experiments° It seems
logical that the inability to detect and thereby protect the
civilian population or military force would significantly add to
the viability of biological weapons as a terrorist or tactical
battlefield threat.
Shortfalls
In addition to the detection shortfall, the United States is

unable to effectively protect the military forces (medically and
nonmedically), conduct an effective preemptive counteroffensive
strike, or protect the population against a terrorist attack . Given
the wide spectrum of kinds of agents that make up the biological
warfare threat, medical prophylactic measures (primarily
vaccinations) are inadequate, and it appears they will be so at
least for the near-term.si Personal protection in a biological
21 7
warfare environment currently depends on protective clothing-

the chemical warfare suit. In Desert Storm, the chemical warfare
suit was adequate if fitted properly (a frequent problem) but
unsuitable if worn for long durations or while in hot weather. 62
Desert Storm also highlighted the shortfall in the ability to
strike a biological warfare storage facility with confidence that
massive numbers of innocent civilians would not be killed
(collateral damage) as a result. 63 The United States is impotent
to prevent a biological warfare terrorist attack against the
population unless there is specific intelligence to forewarn of
the attack .64 Additionally, following a biological warfare attack,
there are many agents that medicine can't treat today. 65
Given this discouraging information, the scenario described
in the prologue seems even more plausible . Other "concepts
of operations" are not hard to imagine . Nearly every grocery or
drug store sells small aerosol deodorizers that periodically
spray a fragrant mist. If an adversary wanted to neutralize the
military brainstem of the United States, they might refill these
deodorizers with a biological agent and clandestinely place
one in each restroom in the Pentagon . After a few days, the
entire population of the Department of Defense headquarters
would be incapacitated, causing mass confusion and
widespread terror.
In a combat environment, conventional dispersal with
bombs, artillery, or even a spraying device on an aircraft (like a
crop duster) would not be nearly as effective as a more
surreptitious attack that would infect people before they
donned protective clothing . An infiltration by special
operations forces or undercover operatives to place aerosol
canisters similar to insect bombs or deodorizers might cripple
a force before it knew it was attacked. Like the Indians at Fort
Ticonderoga, the force would fall ill and many would die. The
force's ability to conduct effective combat operations would
certainly be negated . By the time doctors diagnosed the
disease and determined the right antidote, if there were one,
the war could have been lost.
Consider the implications if the Aum Shinri Kyo had used
botulinum toxin or Anthrax instead of the Sarin chemical
agent in their attack on the subway system in Tokyo . The
death count and the magnitude of the terror would have been
21 8
higher by orders of magnitude . There may have been as high

as a 90 percent fatality rate instead of 0 .2 percent actually
experienced-that could be nearly 5,000 dead innocent
civiliansl And considering that the volume of Sarin to saturate
a given area is approximately equivalent to 10,000 times the
amount of botulinum toxin needed to cause the same effect,
the attack could have been vastly more devastating. 66
In another recent real-world incident, consider how much
more effective the terrorist bombing of the New York World
Trade Center would have been if they had placed a fire
extinguisher filled with a biological agent at the bottom of each
stairwell and rigged them to begin spraying just as the bomb
ignited . In the ensuing panic, thousands of occupants of the
building escaped down the stairs. No one would consider a fire
extinguisher out of the ordinary in a crisis situation after the
bombing. As a result, potentially every occupant in the World
Trade Center could have been infected.
If the intent of the terrorists had been to demonstrate how
vulnerable the population of the United States is, the addition
of biological agents to the conventional attack would really
have terrified leaders and other citizens in the United States .
These incidents of potential biological terrorism must raise
concern and questions about civilized society's ability (or more
accurately, inability) to deal with such an eventuality. As we
enter the twenty-first century, we may well be facing weapons
of mass destruction used, not on the battlefield by warriors
but among dense population centers by deranged non-nation
states-a sobering prospective . Clearly, more has to be done to
overcome this dramatic vulnerability-and soon.
Resolution
Biological terrorism is a challenge for the diplomatic,
technical, military, medical, and intelligence communities, but
the political arena may hold the biggest stick to deter
biological warfare aggression . The BWC is the international
vehicle to prevent biological proliferation. Unfortunately, it
does not provide for verification or punitive measures.67 With
the blatant violations of Russia and Iraq, much tougher
21 9
verification protocols and stronger teeth must be built into the

BWC. This is especially challenging given that the dual-use
technology that produces biological agents gives the biological
warfare producer an almost built-in plausible deniability .
The technical community has the greatest and most urgent
challenge to develop effective detectors, both on the battlefield
and in biological agent detectors similar to metal detectors .
This effort should be a top priority. There should also be
technological exploration, in concert with the intelligence
community, for means to detect clandestine biological
production facilities . The state-of-the-art must be pushed to
find some means to detect a production facility with certainty,
no matter the size. Both human intelligence and the national
technical means must be greatly improved .
The military challenge is to train and equip to respond to a
detected biological threats. To respond on the battlefield,
militaries must develop effective, comfortable, and
long-wearing protective clothing to replace the existing
ensemble . A self-contained, air conditioned unit would be
ideal. The military must also be capable of responding to a
more strategic biological warfare threat-the production
facilities and stored munitions . Planners must work with the
technology community to develop a capability to bomb a
biological warfare target and destroy the viability of the agents
before they can be brought to bear on friendly forces and
without causing unacceptable levels of collateral damage. For
obvious political reasons, such precision-guided munitions
should, also, be kept non-nuclear. The military also should
hone its special operations, direct action skills for the
biological (as well as chemical and nuclear) mission. The
special operation option may be a more plausible alternative,
depending on the scenario.
The medical community should continue to work on
biological warfare vaccinations that are broad-based, safe, and
in sufficient quantities to inoculate those people most
susceptible to biological warfare attacks. This daunting task
will be even more challenging given the controversy about the
vaccines administered during Desert Storm and their
suspected connection with the Gulf War Syndrome .s8 Doctors
should also strive to improve the post-attack treatment in
220
THE BIOLOGICAL-WEAPON
terms of rapid diagnosis, effective medical treatment, and a

responsive surge capability to administer to large numbers of
biological warfare-exposed patients.
The intelligence community must be strengthened and
sensitized in its efforts to gather data on the biological warfare
threat. More resources should be directed toward identifying
biological warfare threats by human and national technical
means. This is especially important to deter terrorism in the
interim until human intelligence and national technical means
can provide more definitive answers about who are the haves
and have nots .
Finally, United States and allied political leadership should
articulate a clear retaliatory policy against the use of any
weapon of mass destruction. This was an effective deterrent on
both sides during the cold war, and it appears to have deterred
Saddam Hussein during Desert Storm. Perhaps even more
importantly, this policy must be supported by unrelenting
resolve to actually carry out the retaliation .
Since countering BW is an issue that crosses many
government agency borders, the direction of the effort should
come from a multi-agency steering group . This steering group
initially should include principals or primary deputies from
the Office of the White House, Department of Defense, Federal
Emergency Management Agency, Public Health Service,
Central Intelligence Agency, and Department of Justice . Well-
versed technical and operational advisors will be essential to
steer the effort.
Many of these agencies already have ongoing programs, but
there is little senior-level cohesion to these fragmented
endeavors. Additionally, some of these efforts have demonstrated
blatant parochialism . A multi-agency steering group would
overcome these stovepipe attitudes and efforts, placing emphasis
on national interests and prioritizing accordingly.
Conclusions
Biological warfare has been a threat for decades if not

centuries. Yet the United States is ill-prepared to defend against
or counter it-why? One view is that "the United States has a
22 1
tendency to wish the problem would go away because it seems

too unsavory and too difficult to handle ." 69 Another skeptic
says, "We don't need it [BW defense] because we have a
treaty." 7° It seems the real issue is the apparent imbalance
between demonstrated threat versus resources expended to
meet that biological warfare threat.
In the case of biological warfare, the fixes are technically
difficult and they will not be low-cost. Weigh this against a
threat that has not yet fully manifested itself. It almost seems
logical that decision makers would be reluctant to spend
scarce resources against a heretofore invisible threat.
However, the United States is moving toward a more
aggressive counter-BW program. In February 1995, the White
House published a national security strategy that said :
U.S. forces must be prepared to deter, prevent and defend
against their use . The United States will retain the capacity to
retaliate against those who might contemplate the use of
weapons of mass destruction, so that the costs of such use will
be seen as outweighing the gains . However, to minimize the
impact of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction on our
interests, we will need the capability not only to deter their use
against either ourselves or our allies and friends, but also, where
necessary and feasible, to prevent it. We are placing a high
priority on improving our ability to locate, identify, and disable
arsenals of weapons of mass destruction, production and storage
facilities for such weapons, and their delivery systems. To
minimize the vulnerability of our forces abroad to weapons of
mass destruction, we are placing a high priority on improving our
ability to locate, identify and disable arsenals of weapons of mass
destruction, production and storage facilities for such weapons,
and their delivery systems .71
This is a step in the right direction, but it needs to be a giant

step . The biological warfare threat looms . The United States
must have the capability to detect, preempt, and protect before
someone strikes us or our allies with a poor man's nuke.
Epilogue-9 January
This is a CNN special report live from the Anthrax Task Force
Center Miami. T9us morning, the fatality count was 16,437. TMs
grim figure was just given to us by doctors here. Unfortunately,
222
they say the number is going to increase dramatically because

so many patients are close to death right now. Doctors are
working frantically to save as many as possible, but they are
running out of antibiotics and facing massive overcrowding . The
halls are crowded with gurneys, and relatives are being asked to
wait outside unless their loved one is critical. And there are many
of those.
The Anthrax Task Force was quickly assembled on the sixth of
January after doctors across the nation diagnosed the horrible
epidemic as pulmonary anthrax. The Federal Emergency
Management Agency heads the team that consists of
representatives from the FBI, the Centerfor Disease Control, the
Armed Forces Military Intelligence Center, and the US Army
Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, to name just a few.
They are warning anyone who attended the Orange Bowl on New
Year's Day to seek medical attention immediately. If you are
experiencing cold-like symptoms, you are probably infected. Do
not hesitate, or it will befatal. The FBI reports that this appears to
be a deliberate act of mass murder. But that is all they have been
able to determine. They are offering a ten million dollar rewardfor
any information about this horrendous crime.
This is allfrom Miami. Back to CNN News Headquarters .
Notes
1 Montgomery (Alabama) Advertiser, November 24, 1994, sec . B.

2. Kathleen C. Bailey, ed ., Director's Series on Proliferation (Springfield,
Va. : Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, May 23, 1994), 2.
3. Robert Harris and Jeremy Paxman, A Higher Form of Killing (New
York: Hill and Wang, 1982), 74.
4. ibid., 9.
5. Bailey, 9-10, and Harris and Paxman, 74.
6. Charles Piller and Keith R. Yamamoto, Gene Wars, Military Control
Over the New Genetic Technologies (New York: Beech Tree Books, 1988), 29.
7. Ernest T. Takafuji, M.D., M.P.H., Col, US Army, "Biological Weapons
and Modern Warfare" (Fort McNair, Washington, D.C ., The Industrial
College of the Armed Forces, National Defense University 1991), 4.
8. Bailey, 10.
9. Harris and Paxman, 75-81 .
10. Sheldon H. Harris, Factories of Death, Japanese Biological Warfare
1932-45 and the American Cover-up (New York: Routledge, 1994), 113-131 .
11 . Bailey, 10-11, and Harris and Paxman, 75-83.
223
12. Jonathan B. Tucker, "The Future of Biological Warfare," in Thomas

Wander and Eric H. Arnett, eds., The Proliferation of Advanced Weaponry
(Washington, D .C. : AAAS, 1993), 16 .
13. Harris, Factories of Death, 68-74 .
14. Ibid., 88-93.
15. Bailey, 15 .
16. Harris, Factories ofDeath, 162-63.
17. United States Army, U.S. Army Activity in the U.S. Biological Warfare
Programs, vol. 2 (Washington, D.C . : US Government Printing Office, 1977),
29.
18. Bailey, 16, and Harris, Factories ofDeath, 164.
19. Ibid, 17 .
20. Tucker, 18.
21 . Bailey, 19, and Jeanne McDermott, The Killing Winds, The Menace of
Biological Warfare (New York: Arbor House, 1987), 30-32.
22. Harris, Factories ofDeath, 171-72, and Tucker, 6-7.
23. McDermott, 189-90.
24. Leonard A. Cole, Clouds of Secrecy, The Army's Germ Warfare Tests
over Populated Areas (Landam, Md. : Rowman & Littlefield, 1988), 107-19,
and Stephen Rose, "The Coming Explosion of Silent Weapons," Naval War
College Review, 42, (Summer 1989) : 26-27.
25. Bailey, 11 ; Harris, Factories ofDeath, 197-98; and McDermott, 156.
26. Cole, 131 ; Harris, Factories of Death, 220-22 ; and McDermott,
37-44.
27. Bailey, 12
28 . "Report: Russia making 'Superplague Germs," The Honolulu
Advertiser, 28 March 1994.
29 . Joseph D . Douglas, America the Vulnerable: The Threat of
Chemical/Biological Warfare, The New Shape of Terrorism and Conflict
(Lexington, Mass .: Lexington Books, 1987), 29.
30. Montgomery Advertiser, 8 April 1995 .
31. David Van Biema, "Prophet of Poison," Tune, 3 April 1995, 28.
32. Ibid., 29.
33 . Mart Yamaguchi, "Japanese Cult Had Bacteria Useful for Germ
Warfare" San Francisco Chronicle, 29 March 1995.
34 . Van Biema, 28.
35. United States Department of Defense (DOD), Office of the Secretary
of Defense, Conduct of the Persian Gulf War, FYnal Report to Congress
(Washington, D.C . : US Government Printing Office, April 1992), 15.
36 . Jonathan B. Tucker, "Lessons of Iraq's Biological Warfare
Programme" Arms Control, December 1993, 237.
37 . Ibid.
38. Ibid., 240.
39. DOD, 639.
40. Tucker, 2.
41 . Bailey, 27.
42. This is based on the author's experience as chief of the team
chartered with finding the solution to attacking biological warfare storage
and production facilities .
224
THE BIOLOGICALWEAPON
43. "Biological Plan Bombed," London: Reuters Wire Service, 3 February

1991 .
44. John M. Broder and David Lamb. "Some Allies Won't Join Offensive,
Cheney Says." Los Angeles 71imes, 24 December 1990.
45. DOD, 639-40.
46. President George Bush, "Crisis in the Gulf," US State Department
Dispatch, II, 2, (14 January 1991) : 25.
47. Tucker, 250-59 .
48. Bailey, 26-27; and Rose, 11-12.
49 . Defense Nuclear Agency, Biological Weapons Proliferation (Ft .
Detrick, Md. : US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases,
April 1994), 49.
50. Tucker, 259 .
51 . Defense Nuclear Agency, 46.
52 . Ibid.
53 . Ibid., 50.
54. Rose, 29.
55. Tucker, 12.
56. John F. Guilmart3n Jr., and Sir Michael Howard, Two Historians in
Technology and War (Carlisle Barracks, Pa. : US Army War College, 20 July
1994), 33.
57. Prodigy Services Company . Software Returned to U.S. Firms, 3 April
1995.
58. Defense Nuclear Agency, 50.
59. Rose, 35-46.
60. Ibid., 82.
61 . Bailey, 67-76.
62. DOD, 639-46.
63. Rose, 85 .
64. Ibid., 35-46.
65. Bailey, 62-63.
66. Ibid., 40-41 .
67. Ibid., 85-90.
68. USA Today, December 8, 1994 .
69. Rose, 20.
70. Bailey, 35.
71 . The White House, A National Security Strategy of Engagement and
Enlargement (Washington, D .C. : Government Printing Office, February
1995) .14.
Chapter 9
Twenty-First Century Germ Warfare
Lt Col Robert P. Kadlec, USAF
The United States military is entering "one of those rare

historical periods when revolutions happen in how wars are
fought. The revolution derives not from any single invention or
idea, but from a range of rapidly developing technologies ."i
Some ten military revolutions have occurred since the fourteenth
century.2
Advances in sensors, communications, stealth technology,
and precision munitions have preoccupied those leaders
planning how the United States will wage future wars . The
revolution in biotechnology, however, has gone relatively
unnoticed . The same technology and expertise which has
brought revolutionary medical therapies and greater agricultural
productivity is readily transferable to the development of
biological weapons.
Many technical barriers that once limited the effective use of
biological warfare (BW) are gone. A country or group with
modest pharmaceutical expertise can develop BW for terrorist
or military use . As the United States prepares itself for the
national security challenges of the twenty-first century, it
must grasp the implications of this silent revolution .
Nature has long waged its own form of biological warfare .
The epidemic of bubonic plague killed an estimated one
quarter of Europe's medieval population (25 million deaths)
between 1347 and 1351 . The introduction of smallpox into the
New World by European explorers decimated the population of
Native Americans .3 A pandemic of Spanish flu may have killed
50 million people worldwide between 1918 and 1919 . 4 By the
year 2000, 40 million people could be infected by the Human
Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) which causes the Acquired
Immunodeficiency Disease Syndrome (AIDS) .5
Such events as these undeniably change biologic, economic,
and political systems . Governments, groups, and individuals
227
who desire weapons of mass destruction (WMD) can use

biotechnology to achieve this goal . Skeptics mistakenly
dismiss the military or strategic value of biological weapons.
These weapons represent a credible threat to United States
security and future economic prosperity .
Biological warfare offers an adversary unique and significant
advantages because of its ease of production, potential impact
of use, and the ability to exploit US vulnerabilities. It is the
only weapon of mass destruction which has utility across the
spectrum of conflict . Using biological weapons under the cover
of an endemic or natural disease occurrence provides an
attacker the potential for plausible denial. In this context,
biological weapons offers greater possibilities for use than do
nuclear weapons.
Biological warfare can include the use of bacteria, rickettsia,
viruses, and toxins to induce illness or death in humans,
animals, and plants. In the current public opinion, there is a
significant misperception that clouds BW discussions .
Biological warfare is often lumped together with chemical
weapons . In BW, the types of agents, physiologic effects,
methods of protection and detection, and methods of
application are distinctly different from those of chemical
warfare (CW) .
Chemical Warfare Versus Biological Warfare
Biological agents are many times deadlier, pound-for pound,

than chemical agents. Ten grams of anthrax spores could kill
as many people as a ton of the nerve agent Sarin.s There are
four distinct types of chemical weapons: nerve, blister, blood,
and incapacitating agents. The effects from these chemical
agents can occur within seconds of exposure as in the case of
nerve and blood agents or as long several hours in the
circumstance of low-dose blister agent exposure such as
mustard gas . The physiological and medical effects of CW are
limited to well-defined symptom complexes. The outcome of
each exposure is dose-dependent death or incapacitation .
Of the four general types of biological warfare agents
mentioned, 60 have been identified with potential weapon
228
TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY GERM WARFARE
utility against humans .? The medical effects of biological

agents are diverse and are not necessarily related to the type
of agent . Some cause pneumonia . Others can cause
encephalitis or inflammation of the brain. Each one causes a
different complex of symptoms, which can either incapacitate
or kill its victim .
The ineffective dose required to induce illness or death may
be as great as tens of thousand of organisms as in the case of
anthrax, or just a few as with tularemia . With the exception of
exposure to a toxin, a period of several days or even weeks
may pass before the onset of symptoms and the ultimate effect.
This incubation period is the time necessary for the microbe or
viral agent to establish itself in the host and replicate.
Toxins, on the otherhand, are a product of living organisms
and behave similar to chemical agents. Botulinum toxin is the
most toxic substance known to man. Without supportive care,
inhalation of nanograms (10-9 milligrams) of this agent will
cause progressive muscular paralysis leading to asphyxiation
and death.
Hazards and Protection
The risk posed by chemical agents has two components: a

vapor and liquid hazard . An individual is protected from the
vapor and liquid hazard of CW with the combination of a
protective mask and the Mission Oriented Protective Posture
(MOPP) suit. The United States also possesses an array of
chemical point detectors and alarms which provide real time
warning of exposure or attack.
In contrast, the hazard posed by biological agents is
primarily an inhalational one. The most effective means of
delivering a BW agent is via an aerosol in the one to five
micron particle size. Creation of this type of an invisible
aerosol cloud may be efficiently accomplished using an
agricultural sprayer for example.
The current US military protective mask, when properly
fitted and donned, affords virtually 100 percent protection.
Biological agents generally do not pose a cutaneous hazard. A
MOPP suit is not required. When US troops deployed to Saudi
229
Arabia during Operation Desert Shield, they did not have an

operational capability to detect any biological agents .$
During Desert Storm, the United States fielded only a
rudimentary developmental detector system . This system
could detect only two of several possible Iraqi BW threats . In
addition to the limited scope of this detector, it took between
13 and 24 hours after the attack to determine the presence
and identify the BW agent . There was no capability to provide
any real-time or advanced warning of a biological attack.9
During the Gulf War, the first likely indication of an attack
was ill and dying soldiers .
Biological Warfare Detection

and Medical Protection
Detection of biological agents is a complex problem . Since

World War II, attempts by the United States to develop BW
detection have met with frustration and only limited success .
Given the chemically indistinguishable organic properties of
biological agents, the methodology for detecting chemical
agents is not useful by itself. Each prospective BW agent
requires a specific assay to detect and identify . Advances in
medical diagnostics and biotechnology are allowing science to
overcome these technical obstacles . The number of potential
agents, however, and the demanding technical and develop-
mental requirements make the challenge of BW detection
daunting.
In lieu of detection or advanced warning and the opportunity
to don protective masks, medical products such as vaccines,
immunoglobulins and antibiotics can mitigate the effect of
biological agents and the potential operational impact. All
three types of products can provide both preexposure and
postexposure protection to an infectious disease and therefore
a BW agent.
Vaccines are active immunization measures whereby the host
is intentionally exposed to either an attenuated or inactivated
form of the disease causing agent. Vaccines prompt the body to
produce antibodies which can afford a high level of protection
230
for many years. The current Food and Drug Administration

(FDA) approved vaccine against anthrax has been shown to be
protective against inhalational agents in nonhuman primates. to
Like biological weapon detectors, vaccines are highly specific
for a potential threat agent. In addition, the time needed to
develop a safe vaccine product suitable for human use may be
10 to 15 years. While several BW vaccines exist for known
threat agents such as botulinum toxin and tularemia, they
remain in a status short of full FDA approval known as an
investigational new drug (IND) .
Full FDA approval may be slow in coming if there is not
sufficient test data on human response to the vaccines or if
there is a lack of commercial demand or no perceived
near-term public requirement for its use . Vaccines against
exotic infectious disease agents associated with offensive BW
fall under the purview of the Department of Defense with the
Army as research and development executive agency .
The ability to provide IND products, which are shown to be
safe in humans and efficacious in animal studies, short of war
or national crisis is limited by the need to satisfy the human
use or informed consent requirements . These requirements
specify the need to inform the prospective recipient of possible
known and theoretical, short-term and long-term effects of the
product . The stigma attached with IND status may have
limited the use of the vaccine during Desert Storm . The
controversy surrounding Persian Gulf Illnes (PGI) further
negatively effects perceptions of IND products used for military
purposes . To date the biological warfare vaccines have not
been associated with PI.
Once a vaccine is given, there is lag time before adequate
protective antibodies develop . The length of time and the
number of doses of vaccine required before protection is
attained and its duration, are unique characteristics of the
specific product . Furthermore, a sufficiently high dose of a BW
or infectious disease agent can overwhelm any vaccine .
Finally, the protective level obtained for a population is not
uniform. There is individual variability .
Immunoglobulins are existing antibodies which can be
harvested from humans or animals. Like vaccines, they are
protective for a specific agent. Unlike vaccines, which
23 1
stimulate active production of antibodies by the host,

immunoglobulins are considered passive immunization. When
injected into a host, they provide short-term protection which
usually lasts weeks or months. Immunoglobulins are usually
used to protect viral and toxin agents. The rigorous FDA approval
required for vaccines is also required for immunoglobulins.
A well-known example of an immunoglobulin preparation is
the serum used for Hepatitis A. Immunoglobulins currently
exist for pre-exposure and post-exposure treatment of botulinum
toxin intoxication . Developments in monoclonal antibody
technologies offer the potential for rapid development of
immunoglobulin preparations for use in BW medical defense. 11
Finally, the use of antibiotics for pre-exposure or post-
exposure treatment of bacterial or rickettsial BW agents offers
the potential for broad spectrum-agent protection. Antibiotics
however do not prevent or treat illness due to viral or toxin
agents . There are further practical theoretic limitations to the
use of antibiotic . Certain microbial infectious diseases and BW
agents have a natural resistance to different antibiotics .
Furthermore, antibiotic resistance among microbes occurs
naturally or can be developed deliberately. Deliberate resistance
can be induced by exposing cultures to serial exposures of
ever-increasing doses of an antibiotic or by transferring a piece
of genetic material which confers antibiotic resistance. 12 It is
possible to purposefully develop a BW agent that is resistant to
a range of different antibiotics .
The duration of protection afforded by antibiotics depends
on the amount of antibiotic available and the compliance of
the individual to take them . For certain bacterial BW
exposures, antibiotics may have to be taken for more than 30
days to prevent illness and possible death. 13 A large enough
infective dose of a bacterial or rickettsial agent could, as in the
case of the vaccine, overwhelm the protection afforded by
antibiotics .
The medical means to mitigate the effects of BW agents and
attack are imperfect. Even with reliable detectors which
provide real time or advanced warning, vaccines, immuno-
globulins, and antibiotics play a complementary role in the
passive defense against BW. In the absence of BW detection,
medical products represent the cornerstone of protecting US
232
'TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY GERM WARFARE
forces from the effects of BW . Besides their medical benefit, their

administration may deter an enemy from using BW.
Role of Intelligence and Medical Defense
The need for a prior knowledge of BW agent threats for both

detectors and medical products has already been suggested. A
great deal is known about US offensive BW agents developed
and produced until 1969 (Table 2).
Table 2
US OFFENSIVE BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS AGENTS PRODUCED
BETWEEN 19541969
Antipersonnel Anticrop
Anthrax Wheat rust
Tularemia Rye rust
Brucellosis Rice blast
Q Fever
Venezuelan Equine
Encephalitis (VEE)
Botulinum Toxin
Staphyloccal
Enterotoxin
There are some classical BW agents which Japan, the

United States, and possibly the former Soviet Union and Iraq
have researched and developed as weapons. 14 Anthrax and
botulinum toxin fall into this category. Among the 60 other
potential BW agents, "sound and complete intelligence data"
will play a vital role in ascertaining which ones proliferants
will pursue . 15 Robert Gates, then director of the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA), underscored the problem in January
1992, when he cited human intelligence as being critical in
assessing the proliferation of both chemical and biological
weapons in the third world. 16
233
Congress has not missed the importance of intelligence in

focusing R&D . Congressional law mandates that BW defensive
medical efforts be funded and prioritized based on a threat list
developed by the US intelligence community. 17
Two questions emerge from this process. The first is whether
adequate priority and resources have been focused on
collecting and analyzing BW-related intelligence and how
successful these efforts have been . The second is whether the
process of creating a threat list based entirely on intelligence
assessments is adequate . Assessing an adversary's current
BW efforts may ignore developments in biotechnology which
may offer breakthrough capabilities and novel agents.
Weaponizing BW
The final distinction between chemical and biological

weapons involves the methods of dissemination . Weaponizing
of CW and BW implies three essential elements : agent,
munition, and delivery system. Both can be "weaponized" into
conventional munitions such as artillery rounds, cluster
bombs, and missile warheads .
Unlike CW, BW weaponizing implies the efficient aerosolization
of viable agents in a one-to-five micron particle size. Dissemina-
tion of BW agents by conventional munitions pose certain
technological difficulties, because they are sensitive to environ-
mental stresses . Excessive heat, ultraviolet light, humidity and
oxidation decrease their potency and persistence. 18 The United
States overcame these difficulties in the late 1960s to produce,
weaponize, and stockpile several BW agents. 19
Weaponizing BW includes some unconventional delivery
systems which may put the United States at risk. 2° In contrast
to chemical agents, biological agents could also be easily
adapted for use with commercially available agricultural
sprayers. This dissemination method lends itself to both covert
and clandestine applications and possible terrorist use .21
Unmanned remotely piloted vehicles (RPVs) with spray tanks
represent another low-observable means of BW delivery .22
A common characteristic shared by both chemical and
biological agents is their dissemination on ancient meteorological
234
the grisly and inhuman effects of chemical weaponry . The

psychological impact of Iran's Scud missile attacks on Israel
and Saudi Arabia was enormous .
Nowhere in recent history, however, has the use of BW been
similarly documented . The suspicion that "Yellow Rain" or the
mycotoxin tricothecene was used in Indochina has never been
conclusively proven, to the embarrassment of the Reagan
administration. Similar suspicions have proven inconclusive
during the Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan. The
former Soviet Union has only recently admitted the truth
about an accident at a biological agent production facility in
Sverdlovosk in 1979. Boris Yeltsin, himself, recently disclosed
Russia's violation of the Biological Weapons Convention in
1992.
During the 1990-1991 Gulf War, Iraq was suspected of having
an extensive BW capability, but subsequent UN inspections
failed to find any definitive proof. However, under the pressure
of economic sanctions, Iraq admitted that it had a biological
warfare R&D effort . For example, Iraqi officials have now
disclosed that between 1985 and 1991 Iraq produced two germ
warfare agents, baccilus anthracix and botulinum toxin . 26
In some measure, BW has attained the stature of the "bogey
man of WMD"-terribly feared but never seen. That fear and
the threat, however, are real . According to the commander of
the US Army Chemical and Biological Defense Agency (CBDA),
the biological threat has been recently singled out as the one
major threat that still inflicts catastrophic effects on a theater-
deployed force.
Desert Storm solidified the perception in the United States, in
the Congress, and among our military leadership that biological
weapons were something that third world nations considered a
potential equalizer. 27 Had Iraq used anthrax or botulinum toxin,
enormous casualties would have resulted which would have
overtaxed the Army's theater medical system .28
Certain findings of the OTA assessment relating to BW are
noteworthy. The ease and cost of developing and producing
BW is much simpler and cheaper than developing nuclear
weapons. Biotechnology allows small facilities to be capable of
producing large amounts of biological agents . Ten million
dollars allows a proliferant to produce a large arsenal .29 The
236
conditions. The prediction and control of the environmental

dispersion of BW agents represents the greatest uncertainty
about their use. Ideal conditions would occur at night, with
favorable mild to moderate winds . The relative coverage of 1,000
kilograms of nerve agent Sarin is 7.8 square kilometers under
these meteorological conditions . Attacking a major metropolitan
city like Washington, D.C., would result in an estimated 3,000
to 8,000 deaths . A similar attack using 100 kilograms of
anthrax under the same conditions would cover 300 square
kilometers and result in 1 to 3 million deaths . 23 Anthrax,
under favorable meteorological conditions, could kill as many
people as a comparably sized nuclear device .24
The Current Biological Warfare Threat
A recently published Office of Technology Assessment (OTA)

document, Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction:
Assessing the Risks 25 had three major findings.
1 . The states most actively working to develop WMD,
although limited in number, are for the most part located in
unstable parts of the world-the Middle East, South Asia, and
the on Korean Peninsula.
2 . WMD proliferation poses dangers to all nations . It poses
particular problems for the United States .
3 . The breakup of the Soviet Union presents immediate
threats to the global nonproliferation regimes .
The proliferation of nuclear, biological, and chemical
weapons and ballistic missiles creates a pall over the potential
achievement of a stable global environment . It also raises the
risks of escalation of regional conflicts . Proliferants understand
the value of these weapons for deterrence, coercion, and war
fighting.
The consequences of their use have unfortunately been
recorded in recent history. The horrific images of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki leave little to imagination regarding the death
and destruction that occur with a nuclear detonation .
Similarly, the television images of dead Kurdish villagers and
incapacitated Iranian soldiers during the Iran-Iraq War reveal
235
pursue BW versus nuclear or chemical weapons. Proliferants

obtain significant capabilities with minimum economic costs
and political risks. The 1991 Gulf War highlights this point.
The United States and United Nations claimed after the war
that Iraq had an advanced BW program, although public
proof was lacking and Iraq initially denied this . During the
war, Iraq capitalized on the coalition bombing of a "baby milk
facility" for propaganda purposes . Despite US official claims
that the Abu Gharyb infant formula plant was a dual-use
facility capable of producing biological weapons, CNN's Peter
Arnett's visit to the site and report raised public doubts about
whether this was a legitimate allied target, when, in fact, it
was . Following the war, intrusive on-site visits by UN
inspectors failed to uncover any irrefutable evidence of an
offensive BW program, although the Iraqis later admitted they
had procured large quantities of a biological agents-anthrax
and botulism toxin.
The Iraqi experience shows that biological warfare programs
can exist and be hidden within legitimate facilities. Even with
direct on-site visits the likelihood of discovery may be small
unless the visitors know precisely where to go and are
permitted entry . The existence of such programs can be
enhanced with tight security and deception .
Recent events in the former Soviet Union concerning
possible proliferation of nuclear materials also add greater
uncertainty to the BW proliferation calculus. The potential
impact and availability of scientists and technicians
associated with the former Soviet offensive BW program
should be considered. Aspiring proliferants may see them as
lucrative recruiting targets. Unlike the complex technological
requirements for nuclear weapons, one or two individuals with
experience in BW agent production and weaponization could
provide breakthrough assistance to a fledgling program .
The challenge for the United States is to develop a coherent
and coordinated strategy to limit BW proliferation. If this fails,
the United States must be prepared to deter, preempt, and
defend against it . On the basis of the several incentives
presented earlier, the likelihood of preventing further
proliferation or rolling back existing BW-capable nations
seems unlikely . The simple arithmetic of the number of
238
scientific and technological knowledge needed to develop and

produce offensive agents in significant quantities is readily
available and relatively unsophisticated . The equipment required
is widely available and is dual-use, having legitimate commercial
applications . Finally, and probably most importantly, the use of
BW could be difficult to prove in some cases since outbreaks of
endemic or naturally occurring disease happen .3o
Eight nations have been implicated in developing offensive
BW capabilities : Iran, Iraq, Israel, North Korea, China, Libya,
Syria, and Taiwan. 31 A ninth, Russia, admitted to developing
an offensive program in violation of the Biological Weapons
Convention, although it has reportedly ended such activities .
The aforementioned list may not be all inclusive . Given the
ability to produce militarily significant quantities of BW agents
(kilograms) in small legitimate facilities, a committed
proliferant with a "modestly sophisticated pharmaceutical
industry" could develop a credible undetected clandestine
offensive BW capability . 32
Genetic engineering is not expected immediately to herald
the development of new or exotic BW agents . Instead, its
impact may enhance the environmental stability of existing
BW agents . It has also been speculated that cloning DNA
segments from toxin-producing organisms may allow for the
mass production of these agents . Production of protein
molecules such as human insulin has been demonstrated and
is commercially available technology.
Nonproliferation and Counterproliferation Policy

The fall of the Soviet Union signaled the end of the superpower
rivalry and created an opportunity to establish an international
system that seeks to ensure political stability, economic
opportunity, and collective methods of conflict resolution. The
United States has prioritized its national security objectives to
enhance economic growth and development ; to prevent the
proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons ; and to
resolve regional conflicts .
Nevertheless, among aggressive third world states, WMD
proliferation is occurring, and there are strong incentives to
237
countries suspected of offensive BW activities is at nine and

likely to increase by the end of the century
Recommendations For The Future
How do we meet the BW threat in the twenty-first century?

What policies will help solve the likely BW challenges? How
should the United States counter-BW programs be prioritized
and integrated?
Intelligence
Incomplete or absent intelligence about a suspected
proliferant's BW program is a likely source of trouble. Not having
specific information about the status of a BW program, or
locations of production and storage, or methods of delivery, or
the specific agents could result in an incomplete assessment .
This could directly impact the development of United States
strategy, policy, and capabilities to meet the threat.
A comprehensive anti-BW intelligence effort must collect infor-
mation relating to the basic science, medical, and bioengineering
capabilities of a potential proliferator . Short of having reliable
human intelligence with direct access to an adversary's BW
program, this type of information is required to assess the
biological capability of that nation.
Intelligence collection and analysis are critical for future
United States BW counter-proliferation efforts. Determining
the intent to develop BW, locating suspect facilities, and
assessing the nature of the offensive program are essential
elements of the intelligence effort. The importance of specific
BW agent intelligence for medical and detection capabilities
deserves emphasis . Even if the intelligence community collects
and validates this information, there may be a significant lag
time, years or even decades, before safe, effective counter-
measures can be developed and fielded .
Intelligence about the anticipated means of delivery and its
doctrine of use is also important . This information allows
development of US active defense capabilities to interdict and
destroy delivery vehicles . Facility-related intelligence also
239
allows for identification and targeting of production and

related facilities for counteroffensive strikes .
The ability to identify BW-related organizations and
proliferants is important to optimize the utility of export controls
and the ability to interdict shipments of related equipment
destined for suspected BW countries or organizations. The
ability to focus limited diplomatic and economic resources to
dissuade, pursue arms control, and bring international pressure
on suspected proliferants is, therefore, also intelligence-
dependent.
The likelihood that national technical means can identify
any or all of the three key BW intelligence components-
intent, location, and nature-is small. Dual-use facilities may
not emit characteristic signatures, but still be capable of
producing military significant quantities of biological agents .
As alluded to earlier, the availability of human-source
intelligence will be a critical element in providing information
related to BW proliferation . Assessment of BW-related
information requires trained personnel experienced in matters
relating to biology, biotechnology, medicine, and agriculture .
Balancing the technical component of the intelligence analysis
process is the need to integrate the expertise and experience
the intelligence system .
Because of the greater relative intelligence challenges and the
myriad of related areas associated with BW versus nuclear
proliferation, adequate resources must be applied to the
problem . Increasing collection priorities should also necessitate
a concomitant increase in the analysis resources devoted to the
problem. There should be an assessment and if necessary a
redistribution of assets to reconcile the disparity between the
effort against nuclear proliferation and that of BW.
Policy and Strategy Development
Beyond the collection and assessment of intelligence, policy

development and integration of the many functions are required
to respond to BW proliferation . The domestic vulnerability to
covert or clandestine acts of BW terror should be assessed. There
must be executive-level interest and involvement to oversee the
development of a crisis response system to domestic BW
24 0
incidents . While the federal response to terrorist acts is well

delineated, the time-sensitive health care demands created by
an act of biological terror must be assessed . It is beyond the
scope of the single agency identified in the Federal Emergency
Response Plan, the Department of Health and Human
Services, to mount the necessary reaction to deal with the
health consequences and prevent unnecessary loss of life .
A historical example illustrates the scale of the effort required
to respond to an act of BW terror in a major metropolitan area. In
1947, an American business man traveled to New York City from
Mexico City. During his bus ride, he developed a fever, headache,
and rash. Though ill upon his arrival in New York, he went
sight-seeing . Over a period of several hours, he walked around
the city and through a major department store . His illness,
smallpox, progressed and he died nine days later. As a result of
this single case, 12 other cases of smallpox and two deaths
occurred. Because of smallpox's ability to be transmitted from
person to person, this handful of cases was deemed so serious
by public health officials that 6,350,000 persons in New York
City alone were vaccinated in less than a month. 33
Unlike 1947, Americans have not been routinely vaccinated
against smallpox since 1930 . A significant proportion of the
US population is susceptible to this virus. The number of
cases expected to occur as the result of a deliberate act could
be in the thousands or tens of thousands . Even though the
World Health Organization declared smallpox eradicated,
North Korea has been identified as one possible country
retaining cultures of this virus to use as a biological weapon. 34
Even if a noncontagious agent were used, the public health
consequences could be overwhelming . If several kilograms of an
agent like anthrax were disseminated in New York City today,
conservative estimates put the number deaths occurring in the
first few days at 400,000 .35 Thousands of others would be at risk
of dying within several days if proper antibiotics and vaccination
were not started immediately. Millions of others would be fearful
of being exposed and seek or demand medical care as well .
Beyond the immediate health implications of such an act, the
potential panic and civil unrest created would require an equally
large response . Local law enforcement agencies would be
overwhelmed and would need the assistance of state and federal
24 1
agencies. The complete vulnerability of the United States if

exposed to this type of terrorism would prompt other terrorists
to attempt the same type of attack for extortion or additional
terror impact .
Prior to a domestic incident such as this, a capable,
practiced, and coordinated response mechanism must be in
place . The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
provides this coordination function, but its actual familiarity
and practice associated with biological terrorism is not known.
The health-related support functions found in the
Departments of Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs,
and Defense would have to be integrated into a single response
plan .
Stockpiles of necessary antibiotics, immunoglobulins, and
vaccines would have to be procured, maintained, and be readily
available to administer within hours after recognizing an
incident. An additional critical element of this response would be
the management of information to allay fears and avoid
unnecessary panic. The effort required to respond to a biological
act of terror rivals that needed for an accidental or deliberate
detonation of a nuclear device.
Arms Control
The BWC clearly represents the "lock which keeps the

honest man honest ." It serves a vital function by establishing
an international norm against BW proliferation. Efforts should
be made to provide both disincentives and incentives for
current states to comply with the BW treaty. Nonsignatories
should be leveraged to participate in the convention .
Strengthening the BWC by enhancing transparency of
biological activities is stated US government policy. Measures
identified in the third review conference are being examined
for use in a possible formal protocol. Like the warning to
consumers--caveat emptor, subscribers to the convention must
understand that complete verification is not just elusive but
impossible .
During the original proposal of the BWC by the United
Kingdom, the Soviet military strongly opposed any limitation
on offensive BW. The Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko
242
felt that, for propaganda purposes, a prohibition on biological

weapons would be useful . Without international controls, the
Politburo and the Soviet military both endorsed the "toothless"
convention in 1972 .36 The Soviet Union was one of the three
depositories of this treaty. Recent disclosures by President
Boris Yeltsin regarding former Soviet and Russian violations of
the Biological Weapons Convention highlight the limits of that
treaty.
The opportunity to strengthen the regime must also be
tempered by events in Iraq since the Gulf War. Despite
intrusive inspections, no concrete evidence of its offensive BW
program has been uncovered, although Iraq has admitted to
an R&D effort prior to the war. The continuation of the US
sanctions is now solely dependent on Iraq's refusal to detail
their BW program. Public statements by senior US intelligence
and government officials indicates that Iraq retains its
offensive BW capability . Indeed, there is a strong suspicion
that Iraq may not have destroyed its BW agents as it has
claimed.
A disturbing prospect for strengthening the BWC is that the
21 measures identified in the third review conference were
utilized in Iraq including such actions as monitoring, sample
collections, short-notice visits, record reviews, and interviewing
of key personnel. These measures have yielded no conclusive
evidence to date about the present Iraqi BW capability or its
past program.
Diplomatic Measures and International Pressure
Current DOD counterproliferation policy emphasizes use of

public diplomacy, positive and negative security assistance,
and identifying the economic, political and military costs of
proliferation. Denial of certain equipment or technologies used
in BW is problematic . Export controls, interdiction, or
disruption of supply networks will have limited impact given
the dual-use legitimate nature of the biological materials and
equipment.
Diplomatic efforts to prevent or control BW proliferation will
have similar limits. States that are parties to the BWC, but are
committed eventually to developing secret offensive biological
243
weapons capabilities, can do serious BW research and

development legally for a time within the current treaty
framework. Nations who are not signatories can refuse entry
and pursue offensive programs as well . Given the low
likelihood of detecting violations, nonsignatories could take
advantage of economic incentives or foreign assistance
programs for joining the BWC, yet pursue clandestine
offensive BW programs . There are reasonable indications that
diplomacy alone can do little to prevent BW proliferation.
Nevertheless, diplomatic and economic pressure can serve a
useful purpose in inhibiting a proliferant's activities by
invoking sanctions, export controls, or publicly disclosing
violations . One must realize that invoking these measures
depends on timely and accurate intelligence . Diplomatic
measures which try to control proliferation may, in the short
run, delay a proliferant's efforts. In the long term, they may
motivate determined proliferants to conceal or deceive their
true intent and activities. Of course the perfect solution to
proliferation is correcting the underlying reasons why nations
choose to develop biological or nuclear weapons . Clearly, BW
is a symptom of a deeper security need .
Countermeasures
Once proliferation occurs and an adversary attains an

offensive BW capability, the focus changes to mitigating its
perceived advantage and deterring its use. The range of
counteroffensive capabilities and strategies must include
deterrence, preemption, and destruction. During Desert Storm
speculation occurred regarding the implicit use of nuclear
weapons in response to BW attack. Both President George Bush
and Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney publicly stated that
any attack on US forces with chemical or biological weapons
would be met with "massive retaliation ." The accuracy and
credibility of this policy option are subject to much debate.
Determining the culpable party after a covert or clandestine
BW attack has occurred may be impossible . The circumstances
following the bombing of Pan American Flight 103 highlight
the potential difficulties of a forensic investigation following an
act of terror. Before implicating Libyan intelligence operatives,
244
both Iran and Syria and several terrorist groups were

suspected . Finding a "smoking gun" and proving who is
responsible for a future covert biological warfare attack could
be difficult or impossible .
There will be times in the future when the US president may
have to consider military preemptive strikes against a terrorist
state or group to protect the United States and allied
governments against BW attacks . Preemptive activities or
anticipatory self-defense can range from efforts that occur
during nonhostilities to open armed conflict . The recent
interception and attempted interdiction of precursor CW
materials bound for Iran from China (Yin He incident) present a
recent example . The 1981 bombing of the Iraqi Orisak nuclear
reactor by Israel is representative of using overt military force
during instances short of open armed conflict. On the other
hand, the US air campaign sought to destroy Saddam Hussein's
WMD capabilities in the opening days of the Gulf War.
Destruction of the means to produce, process and deliver
biological weapons is the final element of the counteroffensive
strategy. There is a potential risk of collateral damage when
striking BW-related facilities or delivery systems . Theoretically,
a downwind hazard could occur if bulk storage of BW agents
were struck when meteorological conditions were favorable to
their dissemination . While no specific confirmed reports of
collateral damage were documented during Desert Storm,
there was one news report that implicated the occurrence of
illness and death in Iraqi guards at an unidentified BW facility
south of Baghdad after coalition bombing.37
Another partial answer to the BW threat would be to deploy
theater ballistic missile defenses capable of intercepting enemy
BW warheads while enroute to their targets. Ideally, interception
and destruction would occur during early boost phase of the
enemy missile launch to lower the risk of friendly casualties.
Good ballistic missile defenses are not enough, since the United
States and its allies must also respond to the challenge posed by
future enemy cruise missiles equipped with biological weapon
warheads . Of course, such missile defenses are defenses of the
last resort. The greatest probability of minimising collateral
damage would be realized if special forces or other means of
preemption allowed the United States or its allies to destroy the
245
enemy BW capability prior to an adversary filling the weapon

or launching the attack.
Biological Defense
The last element of the BW counterproliferation strategy is

medical and nonmedical passive defensive measures. The
importance and problems of BW detectors have already been
identified. A priority effort exists to develop and field a BW
detector which can provide stand-off warning and real-time
detection of attack.
Another nonmedical defensive measure that deserves
emphasis is the employment of collective protective systems .
Hardened shelters and work areas for rear-echelon troops as
well as filtered over-pressurized systems for combat vehicles,
ships, and planes could minimize the effects of both chemical
and biological weapons.
Medical measures to protect against biological threats
include short-term and long-term methods of protecting US
military forces. Even when detectors become available, medical
measures will play an important role in both protection and
treatment against BW attack.
Efforts should be focused first on developing, testing, and
producing Food and Drug Administration-approved vaccines
to immunize soldiers against the most likely BW threat agents.
The availability of suitable vaccines and other medical
products must remain a priority.
On 26 November 1993, Undersecretary of Defense William
Perry signed the DOD immunization policy for BW threats. It
establishes the requirement for both peacetime and
contingency use of vaccines against validated BW threats.
Each theater commander-in-chief (CINC) is required to deter-
mine the regional threat and provide the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs with requirements . Integral in meeting the regional
CINC's requirements is the development of a DOD-dedicated
vaccine production infrastructure .
The liability concerns of the US pharmaceutical industry
have affected development and production of public health
vaccines . The controversy associated with the liability risk of
immunizing children against Pertussis is illustrative . Congress
24 6
mandated a government-subsidized fund to defray court

awarded damages resulting from severe neurologic sequelae
from the Pertussis vaccine . The rationale behind this effort
was to protect the vaccine companies from large cash awards
resulting from litigation, so to preserve their profitable
production of important public health vaccines .
The commercial or public need for vaccines against
biological warfare agents short of an act of terror is virtually
zero. Yet, should a high-confidence warning of an attack on
our population occur, substantial amounts of these products
would be necessary to respond to minimize illness and death .
The peacetime military need exists as result of the DOD
immunization directive .
The ability and desire of the pharmaceutical industry to
commit its facilities for dedicated vaccine development are
questionable in light of profit and liability concerns . A US
government vaccine facility has value for both BW and public
health considerations . Such a facility should remain a high
priority project in developing capability to respond to BW
proliferation .
Besides the actual protective effect gained by BW vaccines,
certain elements of deterrence can be garnered by minimizing
the effect of an adversary's BW agent. Immunizing US forces
and having the ability to protect others will minimize an
enemy's ability to coerce the United States and its allies . They
will also lessen the potential impact of a BW attack on the
United States or its allies .
Therefore, the perceived or actual benefit derived by the BW
proliferant will be lessened . Finally, vaccines and medical
countermeasures can contribute the means to maintain the
war-fighting capability of US military forces as well as
providing for the survival of US citizens .
Conclusions
The proliferation of biological warfare weapons offers less

developed nations a capability as lethal and potentially
devastating as a nuclear device . The ease and relative low cost
of BW production, coupled with spread of dual-use legitimate
247
biotechnology, will facilitate and accelerate BW proliferation in

the short-term and well into the twenty-first century .
Biological weapons can be employed in noncombat settings
under the guise of natural events, during operations other
than war, or can be used in open combat scenarios against
all biological systems-man, animal, or plant. Deliberate
dissemination of BW agents may be afforded possible denial by
naturally occurring diseases and events . The low probability of
detecting the development and production of terrorist and
militarily significant quantities of BW agents lessens the
effectiveness of diplomatic measures such as dissuasion, denial,
and international pressure.
The limitations associated with treaty verification leave little
optimism for the long-term effectiveness of the Biological
Weapons Convention . Ascribing to the BWC may offer further
potential of plausible denial if proliferants sought to use
membership as a cover for their prohibited efforts.
Expectations for preventing BW proliferation must be
grounded in reality. The likelihood of preventing or deterring a
determined proliferant from obtaining biological weapons is
relatively small. The outlook for the future of biological weapons
proliferation is discouraging . "Brain drain" from the former
Soviet Union may create volatile opportunities for breakthrough
proliferants.
Future US policies against BW proliferation need to be based
on integrated government policies and capabilities to deter,
preempt and defend against this threat. No single element of the
program is adequate to deal with the BW problem . Together,
however, these elements can lower the risk and mitigate the
potential impact of BW.
In addition, the problem of biological warfare cannot be
narrowly focused on its ability to kill or render people ill.
Biological warfare's potential to create significant economic loss
and subsequent political instability with plausible denial exceeds
any other known weapon . Germ warfare at the end of the
twentieth and inception of the twenty-first century directly
threatens the security of the United States and the achievement
of a peaceful, prosperous, and stable post-cold war era.
248
Notes
1. Bradley Graham, "Battle Plans for a New Century," The Washington

Post, 21 February 1995, Al .
2. Ibid., A4. See also, Andrew F. Krepinevich, "Cavalry to Computer,
The Pattern of Military Revolutions," The National Interest, No . 37, Fall 1994,
30-42. These 10 revolutions in military affairs were identified as the infantry
revolution, the artillery revolution, revolution of sail and shot, the fortress
revolution, the Napoleonic revolution, land war revolution, naval revolution,
mechanization revolution, aviation revolution, information revolution, and
the nuclear revolution.
3. William H. McNeill. Plagues and Peoples (New York: Anchor Books,
1977).
4. Joseph D. Douglas and Neil C. Livingstone, America the Vulnerable
(Lexington Mass. Lexington Books, 1987),2 .
5. "World AIDS Day December 1 1993" Morbidity and Mortality Weekly
Report (Atlanta : Centers for Disease Control, 19 November 1993), 1 .
6. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Proliferation of Weapons
of Mass Destruction: Assessing the Risks (Washington, D.C. : GPO, 1993), 3.
7. Stanley L. Weiner and John Barret, Trauma. Management for Civilian.
and Military Physicians (Philadelphia : W.B. Saunders, 1986), 519 .
8. General Accounting Office, Chemical & Biological Defense: U.S.
Forces Are Not Adequately Equipped to Detect All Threats (Washington, D.C.:
USGPO, 1993) 1.
9. Ibid., 3.
10. Arthur Friedlander, et al ., Post-exposure Prophylaxis against
Experimental Inhalational Anthrax (Frederick, M.D.: Army Medical Research
Institute of Infectious Diseases, 1990).
11 . Jonathan Lasch, "Human Monoclonal Antibodies for Biological
Warfare Defense," (La Jolla California: The Scripps Research Institute, 19
November 1993), 1 .
12. George F. Brooks, et. al., Medical Microbiology, (Norwalk, N.C. :
Appleton and Lange, 1991), 162-163 .
13. Friedlander.
14. Robert Harris and Jeremy Paxman, A Higher Form of Killing (New
York: Noonday Press, 1982), 76. Also Defense Intelligence Agency, Soviet
Biological Warfare Threat (Washington, D.C.: USGPO, 1986), 2. Another
good source is Michael R Gordon, "CIA Foresees Iraq Biological-Weapon
Capability in Early '91," New York Tifmes, 20 September 1990, 1 .
15. David L. Huxsoll, "The U.S. Biological Defense Research Program," in
Biological Weapons: Weapons of the Future? ed. Brad Roberts (Washington,
D.C. : The Center for Strategic & International Studies, 1993), 60.
16. Robert Gates, McNeil and Lehrer News Hour, 20 January 1992 .
17. General Accounting Office, Biological Warfare: Better Controls in
DOD's Research Could Prevent Unneeded Expenditures (Washington, D.C. :
USGPO, 1990), 5.
18. Office of Technology Assessment, 39.
19. Army, U.S. Army Activity in the U.S . Biological Warfare Program, vol. 2
(Washington, D.C. : USGPO, 1977), D 2, 3.
249
20. [bid., 51 .
21 . Office of Technology Assessment, 39 . See also, Robert H. Kupperman
and David M. Smith, "Coping With Biological Terrorism," in Roberts, 41 .
22 . Office of Technology Assessment, 41.
23 . Ibid., 54.
24. Ibid ., 8.
25. Ibid.
26. R. Jeffrey Smith, "Iraq Had Program for Germ Warfare," The
Washington Post, 6 July 1995, 1 .
27. George Friel, quoted in "Chem-Bio Defense Agency Will Tackle Last
Major Threat to a Deployed Force," Armed Forces Journal, 1992, 10.
28. General Accounting Office, 1 .
29. Office ofTechnology Assessment, 11.
30. Ibid., 39.
31 . Ibid., 80.
32. Ibid., 38.
33. Theodore Rosebury, Peace or Pestilence: Biological Warfare and How
to Avoid It (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1949), 60.
34. John J. Fialka, "CIA Says North Korea Appears Active in Biological,
Nuclear Arms," The Wall Street Journal, 25 February 1993, 16.
35. Kupperman and Smith, 42.
36. Arkady N. Shevchenko, Breaking With Moscow (New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1985), 174 .
37. "Biological Plant Bombed," London : Reuters Wire Service, 3 February
1991 .
Chapter 10
Biological Weapons for

Waging Economic Warfare
Lt Col Robert P. Kadlec, USAF
The final decade of the twentieth century has positioned the

world at the threshold of tremendous opportunity. The
collapse of the Soviet Union has dissolved the bipolar world
and created the opening to forge a new international security
environment . The preeminence of politico-military competition
is slowly giving way to politico-economic competition. As
Shintaro Ishihara predicts, "The twenty-first century will be a
century of economic warfare."'
While military power remains important, its context and
type are changing . The focus of many developing nations is to
seek weapons of mass destruction (WMD)-nuclear, biological,
and chemical weapons-to meet regional security concerns .
The parallel emergence of economic competition and its likely
accompanying conflicts with the proliferation of WMD raises
the possibility of a new form of warfare. This includes the
development and use of biological warfare (BW) against
economic targets.
Using BW to attack livestock, crops, or ecosystems offers an
adversary the means to wage a potentially subtle yet
devastating form of warfare, one which would impact the
political, social, and economic sectors of a society and
potentially of national survival itself.
Agriculture
For both developed and developing nations, nonfuel

commodities present an important source of national security
and prosperity. In the United States alone, the agricultural
sector is an $800 billion industry. Besides providing for the
nourishment of the US population and a significant portion of
251
the world, agriculture generated approximately $67 billion in

export revenues in 1991 . This revenue represents approximately
15 percent of the total US exports for that particular year.2
Agricultural exports have been an important source for
redressing the US trade deficit . Moreover, agriculture is now one
of but a handful of sectors that generates a trade surplus for the
US. In 1992 it created an estimated $18-billion surplus.3
Lesser developed and developing nations and other nations
whose economies are in transition have significant agricultural
sectors that provide important contributions of food and
revenue to their economies . This observation is especially true
of nonoil producing nations . Yet, even with productive
agricultural systems, most if not all nations in the world are
food importers .
Trends in agricultural systems, particularly food production,
indicate that fewer numbers of people and hectares are
involved in agricultural production . In developed market
economies, the percentage of the economically active
population in agriculture declined by 31 .2 percent from 1980
to 1992 . 4 A similar, yet not as dramatic, decline was noted in
developing countries, where the numbers of people involved in
agriculture declined by 11 .3 percent during the same period . 5
Despite that decline, the overall agricultural productivity in
both the developed and developing worlds increased by
45 .3 percent and 25 .2 percent respectively. 6
This increase in productivity has resulted from the spread of
modern farming technology, high-yield crop varieties, and
potent fertilizers and pesticides . The goal of many developing
and developed nations is to become self-sufficient in food and
other agricultural products . 7 Competition has become intense .
Efforts to remove trade-distorting domestic subsidies and
limits to market access to agriculture were objectives of the
Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Trade and
Tariffs . Market access-limitation policies essentially maintain
domestic prices above world prices and isolate domestic
producers from competition and the volatility of the world
market. 8 While included on the Uruguay Round's agenda,
tremendous resistance was encountered from several important
nations . The United States wanted to protect dairy products,
sugar, cotton, and peanuts . Japan wanted to prevent rice
252
BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS FOR WAGING ECONOMIC WARFARE
imports . Despite efforts to settle differences on issues of

market access, internal supports, and export competition,
agreement on many items was not reached.
Biotechnology
Part of the economic revolution in the world today is the

explosion of biotechnology . Biotechnology has been a significant
reason why agricultural systems are much more productive . As
alluded to earlier, the development of higher-yield crops results
partly from genetic recombinant engineering, which takes genes
coded for greater productivity and resistance to disease and
drought and inserts them into a particular species of crop.
Besides enhancing the productivity and heartiness of food or
cash crops, methods of biological control are increasingly relied
upon to provide an environment-friendly means of controlling
economically significant pests and diseases . Bacillus
thuringiensis (B.t.). is a well-known example of a naturally
occurring sporulated bacteria which effectively controls
caterpillars, particularly tomato worms.
A variant of BA., called B.t. israelensis or B.t.i., has shown its
effectiveness in controlling malaria-bearing mosquitoes and
blackflies which carry the parasite that causes river blindness .9
Efforts are now under way to insert the gene from B.t. into such
plants as cotton . Initial research indicates that this procedure
enables cotton plants to resist the boll weevil (anthonomus
grandis) . This particular pest caused an estimated $50-billion
loss in US cotton revenues from 1909 to 1949. 10
In California's Imperial Valley the pink bollworm caterpillar
has caused the amount of land planted with cotton to drop from
140,000 acres to only 7,000 during the past 17 years." Today
US cotton farmers spend $500 million on pesticides .
Nature of the Biological Warfare Threat
Harmful bacteria, viruses, rickettsia, or toxins that incapacitate

or kill humans, animals, or plants have an unsettling value in
253
waging economic warfare . In 1925 Winston Churchill

envisioned a context for BW when he wrote about "pestilences
methodically prepared and deliberately launched upon man
and beast . . . Blight to destroy crops, Anthrax to slay horses
and cattle . . . ." 12 This discussion narrows the definition of
BW to consider only its utility against such economic targets
as animals and plants.
Historical Context and Evolution
Investigators have argued that German agents intentionally

infected horses and cattle with anthrax and glanders before
they were shipped from the United States to Europe during
World War 1. 13 During World War II, the United States, fearful
of perceived efforts by both Japan and Germany to develop
BW, engaged in a large and ambitious retaliatory offensive and
defensive BW research and development effort . While never
fielding or using a BW weapon, they did develop several BW
agents, including rinderpest, glanders, wheat rust, rye rust,
and rice blast to use against animals and plants.
Anecdotal reports suggest US officials had considered using
rice blast agents to destroy Japan's rice crop during the
closing months of the war to force its surrender . The
realization that the United States would have to supply food to
Japan once the war ended and the availability of the atomic
bomb, dissuaded US officials from, pursuing this option.
In 1972, an international treaty, the Biological Warfare
Convention, specifically prohibited the research, development,
production, or use of biological agents for offensive use . While
162 countries have signed this treaty, no verification means
are available to ensure compliance . Reportedly, up to 20
nations are suspected of pursuing offensive BW capabilities .
Significant on the list are Russia, China, Iran, Iraq, Syria,
Israel, North Korea, and Taiwan. 14 No specific mention is made
of any suspect nation seeking development of anti-animal/
anti-crop agents . Note that the United States during its
offensive program first developed and fielded an anti-crop
bomb. The United States discontinued its pursuit of several
anti-agricultural agents in the mid-1950s since they lacked
military utility .
254
Biological Weapons: Cost-effective WMD
Compared to other mass destruction weapons, biological wea-

pons are cheap. A recent Office of Technology Assessment (OTA)
report places the cost of a BW large arsenal as low as $10 million.
This estimated cost stands in stark contrast to a low-end
estimate of $200 million for developing a single nuclear weapon .
The high-end cost estimate for a nuclear weapons could be 10 to
50 times higher . 15 Not only is BW more affordable, but militarily
significant quantities of BW agents (kilograms) in legitimate
biological laboratories make BW production easy to accomplish
and conceal . Any nation with a moderately sophisticated
pharmaceutical industry can do so .
Nature at Work: Whiteflflies and Plausibility

Biological economic warfare likely would involve the
intentional dispersion of a harmful agent or pest against a
high-value cash crop or food source. The US Department of
Agriculture recently identified 53 animal diseases which are
nonindigenous or foreign, which, if introduced into this
nation, would adversely impact the livestock industry . 16
Recent naturally occurring events highlight this potential .
The Imperial Valley produces a large variety of food and
produce . In the summer of 1991, an infestation by the sweet
potato fly or whitefly destroyed much of the crops in this area
and caused a $300-million loss . A related but different strain of
whitefly caused $100 million in losses in southeastern California
in 1981 . The US agricultural system is a $800-billion industry.
The Imperial Valley infestation represents a natural event where
a harmful agent (whitefly) encountered a susceptible host (crops)
in a conducive environment (the Imperial Valley) . The
investigation of this natural outbreak, however, reveals just how
a deliberate act of BW economic warfare could be engineered . 17
The poinsettia strain of the whitefly is not found naturally in
California. In the circumstance of this outbreak, the whitefly
could have accompanied a shipment of poinsettia plants from
Florida. While the exact place the poinsettia strain originate
remains a mystery, other similar strains originate in Russia,
mainland Asia, and Africa.
255
In its natural habitat, the whitefly has a certain homeostatic

existence . Balanced between natural conditions, competitors,
pathogens, and predators, the impact it has on the
environment is usually limited . When this fly or any other pest
is placed in an environment where natural controls are
missing, uncontrolled insect breeding may cause subsequent
crop destruction. In the Imperial Valley circumstance, however,
the culpable insect represented more than simply a pest
translocated to new fertile fields . This particular type of whitefly
was a distinct new strain. Its biological characteristics made it
an effective agent of destruction . Its appetite was voracious.
Unlike other known strains of whiteflies, this one consumed
many times its body weight in vegetation and dined on a great
variety of plants . Second, it had an unusual resistance to
chemical and naturally occurring pesticides . DNA analysis of the
genetic makeup showed a unique strain of this particular insect.
Finally, besides its direct effects, the whitefly carried other
harmful agents like fungus . Thus, it also inflicted disease on
already weakened plants.
Naturally occurring genetic events of mutation and selection
reasonably explain this occurrence . It is also possible that such
insects could be bred for nefarious purposes . In the context of a
deliberate act of BW, a nation could select from several native
occurring or endemic pests. Selective management and breeding
could develop a "super" pest. The selection of this pest could be
highly specific for a particular crop that an economic competitor
or regional adversary relies on for economic prosperity or
national survival. To provide better cover for a clandestine or
covert BW attack, pests endemic to the target nation could be
similarly obtained and could enhance its resistance through
such laboratory manipulation as nonindigenous pesticide
exposure . Infiltrating and disseminating perpetrator insects is
then dependent on the mode of transportation and the level of
plausible denial desired .
United States Vulnerabilities
The threat of this type of insect-borne BW attack on the

United States remains theoretical . A recent OTA report on the
256
United States addressed the threat from harmful

nonindigenous species (NIS) . The report indicated that the
intentional (noncriminal) or unintentional importation of plants,
animals, or microbes has major current and future economic
consequences for US agriculture, forestry, fisheries, water use,
utilities, and natural areas.
Importation of harmful nonindigenous species costs the
United States billions of dollars annually. 18 From 1906 to
1991, 79 NIS caused documented losses of $97 billion (Table 3) .
This table detailed only a small percentage of the large number
of economically and environmentally costly agents, so their
true impact is not known .
Table 3
Estimated Cumulative Losses to the US from
Selected Nonindigenous Species, 1906-1991
Category Species Analyzed Cumulative Losses Species Not
(number) ($ millions, 1991) Analyzed
Plantsa* 15 603 -
Terrestrial 6 225 >39
Vertebrates
Insects 43 92,658 >330
Fish 3 467 >30
Aquatic 3 1,207 >35
Invertebrates
Plant Pathogens 5 867 >44
Other 4 917 -
'Excludes most agricultural weeds .
Source: M . Cochran, "Non-Indigenous Species in the U .S. Economic Consequences," prepared for Office of
Technology Assessment, March 1992 .
US losses between 1987 and 1989 to the Russian wheat

aphid (diurahis noxia), for example, exceeded $600 million. 19
The Mediterranean fruit fly caused $897 million in damage
and lost revenue . Each year $7.4 billion is spent on pesticide
applications, with a significant amount spent on controlling
NIS insects . Nonindigenous weeds, with both direct and
indirect effects, caused a loss of somewhere between $3.6 and
$5 .4 billion per year. If herbicides were not used to control
them, weed loss would hover around $19 billion yearly .
Another recent example cited in the OTA report described
how NIS gain entry into the US . The Asian tiger fly (anopheles
25 7
albopictus) mosquito does not naturally live in the US . It is

normally found in Southeast Asia where it is the vector or
carrier for the human diseases dengue and malaria .
In 1985 a freighter carrying containers of old tires imported
this mosquito into the United States via the Port of New
Orleans . This mosquito is an aggressive human biter and a
prolific breeder . Because of its behavior, the Asian tiger fly
poses a greater risk of endemic or naturally occurring
mosquito-borne disease transmission . With no geographic
barriers, the tiger fly has spread to 22 states and is creating a
public health concern because of the increased occurrence of
Western and Eastern equine encephalitis and the reemergence
of dengue fever in the United States.
The impact and magnitude of the tiger fly will not result in
billions or millions of dollars of lost productivity or tens of
thousands or thousands of deaths . Clearly, the United States
has a well-established public health system with surveillance,
rapid identification, and management if an epidemic or
outbreak occurs.
Nations of the third world, however, are not as fortunate and
do not have an existing infrastructure nor adequate resources
to mitigate the impact of similar events. This shortcoming was
recognized in an epidemic of yellow fever in Nigeria in 1991 . A
shipment of used tires from Asia was implicated in the
introduction of this insect.2° Similar modes of NIS infiltration
have been described as a result of airline travel and flushing
ballast tanks on ships.
A contemporary theoretical example of a third world BW
economic scenario is represented by an actual situation in
Malaysia, the world's third largest producer of rubber behind
Thailand and Indonesia. In 1991, it exported $971 .9 million of
natural rubber . Along with other Southeast Asia nations,
Malaysia is trying to keep the South American leaf blight
(microcyclus ulei) from affecting its rubber tree industry. This
fungus was first detected in Brazil at the turn of the century
and infects the stems of young trees and leaves and
significantly decreases the output of sap.
No known cure for microcyclus exists . This blight is the
main reason a viable rubber industry no longer exists in South
America . The immediacy of airline travel, especially directly
258
from Brazil to Malaysia, makes possible the unintentional

entry of this fungus . Estimates by Malaysian Agricultural
Department officials predict that should this fungus enter into
its country's rubber trees, it would decimate the trees within
two years . Fighting off this fungus is considered vital to
sustain Malaysia's economic boom at its projected 7-8 percent
growth rate. 21
In the spring of 1993, an outbreak of hoof-and-mouth
disease occurred in Italy. This contagious virus led to the
destruction of 4,000 head of cattle . After authorities linked the
source of this outbreak to a live cattle shipment from the
former Yugoslavia, the European Community (EC) sparked a
"cow war" when they banned bovine products from all 18
countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union .
Bovine meat exports from eight East Europe countries
(Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland,
Romania, and a portion of the former Soviet Union) totaled
$103 million in 1991 . Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and
Bulgaria reacted by banning the EC's own meat exports .
Eastern European officials say EC markets remain almost as
closed to them in 1993 as to their former communist regimes . 22
While the governments of Eastern European countries have
large agricultural infrastructures with the potential for large
exports, they lack money and do not conform to the EU's
common agricultural policy. The cow wars restrict their access
to agricultural markets and economic capital which could
finance greater economic and political reforms .
The reappearance of the screwworm along the Mexico-Texas
border has worried US cattlemen . Its return resulted from
importation of an infected herd from Central America in
November 1992 . Infection of US cattle would result in "severe
economic losses." 23 This pest eats the flesh of cows, destroying
their hides, and kills newborn calves . During the past four
decades, over $400 million has been spent on US-Mexican
screwworm eradication programs . A major concern created by
lowering trade barriers during the North American Free Trade
Agreement negotiations was how this treaty would facilitate
the spread of agricultural pests like the screwworm .
259
IIlustrative Scenarios
Thus, naturally occurring events where the agent, the

susceptible host, and the environment converge can result in
disease, economic loss, and national or international
repercussions . No evidence indicates that any nation or group
willfully caused the events cited . However, we may not be so
lucky in the twenty-first century. It is all too possible to
construct a scenario which would offer plausible denial and
possible gain to a potential adversary .
Scenario One: Corn Futures
The US Department of Agriculture estimates that the 1994

corn harvest would plunge 31 .4 percent from record summer
rains and flooding. It was expected the cost of a bushel of corn
would soar to three dollars . The February 1994 price of corn,
the nation's number one crop, was the highest in a decade .24
The resultant increase in cost increased operating expenses of
companies "that handle[d] everything from corn-based ethanol
fuel to livestock." 25
"We are vulnerable in 1994 . . . right on the edge," said Keith
Collins, acting assistant agriculture secretary for economics .
The fall 1993 harvest was too small to supply both domestic
processors and exporters . US stockpiles are expected to be at
their lowest levels since the food scare of the mid-1970s . A
slight acceleration in food inflation was expected in 1994. Food
inflation in 1994 was estimated at between 3 .3 percent and
3.5 percent, up from 2 .2 percent in 1993 and 1 .2 percent in
1992 . This is the first time in about four years whereas food
prices exceeded the general inflation rate . 26
A corn crop short of the 8 .4-billion-bushel estimate would
signal a 4 percent food inflation rate in 1995 . 27 Some
additional disasters such as a drought or loss of corn to blight,
"would do considerable economic damage to world food
supplies ."28 A 7 .5-billion-bushel corn crop would push prices
to four dollars a bushel . Such a surge would push inhibited
exports and make hogs and cattle too expensive for many
farmers to feed, eventually driving up meat prices . 29
26 0
How could someone use biological agents to conduct

economic warfare by ruining a competitor's crop or product?
Three more scenarios involving corn, wine, and cotton attacks
can illustrate the potential BW threat .
Scenario Two: Corn Terrorism

A second scenario might go as follows . China is the world's
second largest corn exporter .3° Recognizing the vulnerable
situation of the United States, China plans an act of agricultural
terrorism. Selecting a corn seed blight, fusarium graminearum,
which grows well at cool temperatures and in wet soil, they
clandestinely spray this hearty spore over the US Midwest from
commercial airliners flying the polar route to Chicago and Saint
Louis . They disseminate the spore in winter and early spring, and
the blight is present in the soil when spring planting occurs.
The United States, despite eliminating the corn set-aside
requirements and planting more than 80 million acres of corn,
suffers from a crop disaster. This unexpected Chinese-induced
corn seed blight decimates the US corn crop . The fall harvest
is a full 30 percent below expected levels . The United States
then imports corn for the first time in its history to meet
domestic needs. Food prices rise sharply and cause higher-than-
expected food prices and inflation. China gains significant
corn market share and tens of billions dollars of additional
profits from their crop.
Scenario Three: That's a "Lousy" Wine

The grape louse (phylloxera vastratrix) is ravaging the
vineyards of Napa and Sonoma counties in Northern California.
It is estimated that 60-70 percent of the 68,000 vine acres are
being destroyed . The louse does not affect the fruit of the vine
but attacks the roots, which slowly kills the plant. It is difficult to
detect, and once in place, it is a prolific breeder. The louse is
carried by wind, water, and mud and, once discovered, is likely
to have spread already to other areas . 31
Infected vines may be treated by removing them and
replanting them with louse-resistant plants . The estimated
cost to the Napa-Sonoma wine industry will be about $1 billion
or more over the next few years . The expected impact will be
26 1
heavier on the more expensive Northern California wines,

causing the disappearance of some labels .
A hypothetical scenario could consist of a group of
disgruntled European winemakers who are jealous at the
superior quality of Northern Californian wines and desirous of
recapturing the wine market. Traveling as tourists, they slip
into the United States with tins of pate which conceal millions
of the offending louse. Traveling through the California wine
country, they disperse their deadly cargo.
Scenario Four: Sabotaging Pakistan's Cotton Crop
Pakistan is the world's third-largest producer of cotton behind

the United States and China. In 1991 the Pakistanis exported
$420.4 million of raw cotton, some 36 percent of its primary
commodity exports (excluding fuels) in 1991 .32 If textiles, yarn,
and other by-products are included, almost 60 percent of
Pakistan's exports depend on cotton.33 Due to an attack caused
by an insect, the 1993 harvest will fall 15 percent below expected
levels .
This crop loss will affect the country's overall economic
performance . Pakistan will produce only 10 million or so bales
of the 12 million bales targeted . In 1993, Ahmed Muktar (the
minister of state for commerce) said, "This definitely would be
detrimental to our economy, because the surplus . . . would
have added to our meager foreign exchange reserves. "34 The
immediate economic impact of the crop loss, however, may
have longer-lasting effects . Cotton farmers, fearful of
experiencing a similar disaster next year, are considering
planting something else . Rice, wheat, and sugarcane, which
are significantly less profitable (cotton is 43 times more
profitable than all other crops), appear more attractive and
safer than cotton . 35 "Restoring the confidence of farmers, who
doubt their ability to generate profits from cotton, could
become one of Pakistan's toughest challenges ." 3 s
The open hostility between Pakistan and India is not
hypothetical. They are competing against each other in an
arms race involving nuclear and conventional weapons . The
heavy reliance of Pakistan on a single export cash crop is not
unusual in the developing world . The geographic proximity of
262
Pakistan to its principal adversary allows a fairly easy route of

infiltration and introduction of a pest against a high-value
target like its cotton crop . The ability to inflict economic loss
on Pakistan has repercussions that affect the private and
commercial sectors, the military, and the society .
Implications of Economic Biological Warfare
The current US focus on BW limits consideration to the

human effects of such agents as anthrax, plague, and smallpox.
Little or no effort seems to be devoted in assessing the
vulnerabilities of the United States or any other nation's
agricultural or ecological infrastructures to BW attack. If the
focus of international and regional competition is transitioning to
economic power, it is prudent to assess the potential impact of
this form of economic warfare, develop a comprehensive sur-
veillance or monitoring system, and prepare countermeasures .
Developed countries with adequate economic reserves,
agricultural diversity, and the means to mitigate such
occurrences would be relatively resistant to such attack . Even
developed countries, however, could experience significant
economic losses and political and national security repercussions
if other intervening events could make certain target commodities
more vulnerable or magnify the impact of BW use.
Lesser developed or developing nations are in a much more
precarious position . If the target commodity was a principal cash
crop or food source, using BW may inflict a grave blow to that
nation's economy or society and possibly result in some political
impact. History has recorded the chaos and instability created
by such natural catastrophes as famines and epidemics. Using
BW in this fashion would have applications to waging
low-intensity warfare with strategic outcomes .
Addressing the Problem
Recent public debate about the appropriateness of the US

intelligence community's collecting economically relevant
263
intelligence did not mention the impact of BW proliferation on

economies . Any open-source discussion about proliferation of
biological weapons does not address its utility in waging
economic warfare .
As in other forms of weapons proliferations, however,
intelligence remains key . The foundation of intelligence
assessment related to BW directed against economic targets is
based on human intelligence . Collection activities must be
focused on research and development efforts of adversarial
nations in areas relating to endemic and nonendemic
nonhuman diseases and pests. The means to assess any
information collected requires a truly multidisciplinary effort
involving veterinarians, ecologists, horticulturists, botanists,
entomologists, and intelligence analysts.
While there is a requirement to assess what potential
adversaries are doing in these areas, vulnerability and potential
impact data must be collected on US systems . This effort
requires a coordinated interagency process involving the
Departments of Agriculture, Interior, Commerce, and Treasury
as well as the Environmental Protection Agency . Besides
sensitizing the federal government to the potential problem,
state and local governments should support this effort. State
and local governments should be educated on the importance
of reporting nonhuman outbreaks of disease or pests with
economic significance .
Local and federal agencies should investigate reports of
nonhuman outbreaks which occur in defined high-value
commodities, involve potential BW or nonendemic agents, or
inflict a certain threshold economic loss .
Similarly, some existing integrated governmental mechanism
must be mobilized quickly to contain and mitigate the impact
of a BW attack . The Federal Emergency Response Plan
contains at least a theoretical structure to begin to address
this problem .
The real and hypothetical examples cited highlight the
opportunity offered by BW as a means to attack the agricultural
infrastructure of an adversary. The existence of naturally
occurring or endemic agricultural pests or diseases and
outbreaks as described permit an adversary to use BW with
plausible denial.
264
The impact of such events would go beyond simply affecting

a nation's economy to potentially affecting its national
security . The United States gave up its antiagricultural
biological weapons long before it unilaterally renounced the
use and development of biological warfare in 1969 .
The present concerns about the proliferation of weapons of
mass destruction appropriately recognize the threat posed by
BW against our military and citizenry. The question is whether
our government is aware of, or prepared to respond to, acts of
BW? Is our intelligence community sensitized or tracking
proliferant's efforts to develop antiagriculture BW? Is there a
mechanism whereby federal, state, and local agencies report
and respond to acts affecting valuable economic resources or
involving suspicious or nonendemic agents?
In the post-cold war era and as we enter the twenty-first
century, the economy determines superpower status . The threat
posed by biological weapons deserves prudent consideration .
Notes
1 . Shintaro Ishihara cited in C. Fred Bergsten, "Japan and the United

States in the New World Economy," in Theodore Rueter, ed., The United
States in the World Political Economy, (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994), 175 .
2. UNCTAD Commodity Yearbook, (New York: United Nations Publication,
1993),2 .
3. World Economic Survey 1993: Current Trends & Policies in the World
Economy (New York: United Nations Publications, 1993), 72 .
4. Ibid ., 155 .
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid .
7. Ibid., 72.
8 . Ibid., 71 .
9. Thomas Y. Canby, "Bacteria : Teaching Old Bugs New Tricks,"
National Geographic, 184, no.2 (August 1993) ; 53.
10 . U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment, Harmful Non-
indigenous Species in the United States (Washington, D.C . : US Government
Printing Office, 1993), 65.
11. Jon Thompson, "King of Fibers," National Geographic, 185, no. 6.
(June 1994) : 80.
12. Robert Harris and Jeremy Paxirran, A Higher Form of Killing (New
York : Noonday Press, 1982), 70.
13. Rexinond C. Cochrane, "Biological Warfare Research in the United
States," in History of the Chemical Warfare Service in World War It (1 July
1940-15 August 1945) (Washington DC: US Army, 1946), 3.
265
14. Office of Technology Assessment, Proliferation of Weapons of Mass

Destruction (Washington, D.C . : Government Printing Office, 1993) .
15. Ibid., 11 .
16. Office of Technology Assessment, Harmful Non-indigenous Species in
the United States, 301 .
17. Raymond J. Gill, "The Sweet Potato Whitefly Problem in Southern
California," California Department of Food & Agriculture Report (Sacramento,
Calif. : 1991) .
18. Harmful Non-indigenous Species, 5 .
19. Ibid., 65.
20. "Aedes albopictus Introduction into Continental Africa," Morbidity and
Mortality Weekly Report (Atlanta: Center for Disease Control, 6 December
1991), 836 .
21 . "Malaysia Rubber Industry Fears Deadly Latin Fungus," Baltimore
Sun, 18 April 1993 .
22 . Eric Bourne, "Europe's 'Cow War' Shows Persistence of Cold War
Divides," Christian Science Monitor, 20 April 1993. See also, "Epidemic Hits
Italian Livestock," Wall Street Journal, 16 March 1993.
23. David Clark Scott, "Pest Infestation Spurs Doubts Over Standards in
Mexico," Christian Science Monitor, 16 January 1993.
24. "The Outlook: As Food Prices Rise 1994 Crops Hold Key," Wall Street
Journal, 7 March 1994, 1 .
25. Scott Kilman, "Corn Prices Are Expected to Soar After Forecast of
31 .4% Plunge in US Harvest From Last Year," Wall Street Journal, 9
November 1993.
26 . "The Outlook : As Food Prices Rise 1994 Crops Hold Key," 1 .
27 . Ibid.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid.
30. World Economic Survey 1993.
31 . Kathleen Sharp, 'Me Louse and the Grape," American Way, 15
September 1993 44.
32. UNCTAD Commodity Yearbook, 16.
33 . Farhan Bokhari, "Cotton Farmers Face Big Setback," Christian
Science Monitor, 29 December 1993, 8.
34. Ibid .
35. Ibid .
36. Ibid.
Chapter 11
On Twenty-first Century Warfare
Dr. Lawrence E. Grinter and Dr. Barry R. Schneider
Shortly after he became secretary of defense, William S .

Cohen toured US forces in Korea. The briefings he received on
the North Korean chemical and biological warfare threat
caused him to immediately order a billion-dollar increase in
US defense spending on counterproliferation programs : $732
million for passive defenses, $146 million for counterforce
programs, $87 million for special forces improvements, and
$36 million for active defense additions . It is a fact of life that
even poor states such as the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea, if determined, can develop revolutionary weapons that
might offset the conventional firepower of the world's sole
remaining military superpower.
In order to plan for the battlefield of the future, the
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff recently released a report
called Joint Vision 2010. This report offers a broad framework
for understanding joint warfare in the future. It also directs
US armed forces acquisition programs in obtaining the
capabilities to run military operations using precision
engagement, dominant maneuvers, and focused logistics while
providing full dimensional protection of forces and assets in
combat . JV2010 is a reflection of the basic belief that a
revolution in military affairs is occurring, and it assumes that
new capabilities are needed to cope with that RMA.
There have been perhaps a dozen revolutions in military
affairs since the fourteenth century .' One recent one began
when the United States detonated its first atomic bomb in the
early 1945 Trinity test . The Hiroshima and Nagasaki
detonations in August 1945 helped end World War II . In that
same war, the Japanese experimented with germ warfare by
spreading bubonic plague agents on Chinese population
centers via bombing missions . Also in WWII, the Germans
manufactured-but did not use--Sarin and Tabun nerve gases.
267
These nuclear, biological, and chemical armaments now form
a new "trinity" of weapons of mass destruction that threaten
to make twenty-first-century warfare more costly than
anything seen before .
In 1998 the world has seven acknowledged nuclear weapons
states : the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom,
France, China, India, and Pakistan . (India and Pakistan do
not yet admit their nuclear test explosions are for weapons.)
There is at least one undeclared nuclear weapons state, Israel.
Beyond this, there are the near-nuclear states such as North
Korea, Iran, and Iraq . If biological and chemical weapons
arsenals are added to the nuclear club, it is estimated that
between 20 and 30 states possess one or more of the NBC and
missile weapons . Some of these are hostile radical regimes--
rogue states that threaten their neighbors with intervention
and/or state-sponsored terrorism .
Another revolution in military affairs, at least from an
American perspective, has been the spread of WMD to such
NBC-Arming Sponsors of Terrorism and Intervention (NASTI) .
This will cause considerable change in how the United States
and its allies will have to fight, train, equip, and supply their
forces opposing such foes in future major regional conflicts .
In a conflict against such a heavily armed opponent, will the
United States and its allies be forced toward more dispersed
forces, greater mobility, outranging of the opponent in
disengaged combat, risky reliance on escalation dominance to
deter adversary use of WMD, and/or improved active and
passive defenses? Or can we follow an enhanced version of
Desert Storm where, relying on escalation dominance to deter
enemy intrawar resort to WMD, we emphasize parallel
warfare, hyperwar, information warfare, dominating
maneuver, precision targeting, and/or space technologies to
beat the enemy military and secure our objectives?
Which set of technologies will be used in twenty-first-
century wars? Which set of strategies best fits those
technologies? Will the technologies of a past RMA, in the
hands of our enemies, neutralize or preclude the utility of the
newer technologies of a more modern RMA? Translation : will
enemy use of NBC and missile systems influence the terms of
battle so as to marginalize our ability to prosecute information
268
warfare, space war, precision warfare, and dominating
maneuver? Or will the fear of allied retaliation keep the
adversary from initiating WMD strikes against allied forces,
ports, air bases, and cities?
High-altitude nuclear bursts and the resultant electro-
magnetic pulse (EMP) might render most allied space assets
inert. EMP could burn out the circuitry of most allied radio
systems, computers, transistors, and power grids in the region
of combat, rendering many of the allies' high-tech assets
harmless .
Adversaries could also mount NBC weapons on mobile
missile launchers, camouflaged, constantly moved, and
hidden from sight and easy detection . This would create a
targeting nightmare similar to that the allies faced in the Gulf
War against Iraq's Scud missile launchers .
Countermeasures taken to blind US and allied space assets
may rob war-fighting commanders in chief and their staffs of
the information needed to target enemy forces, especially their
highest-valued mobile military assets. After all, missiles and
smart bombs still need correct coordinates to carry out
precision attacks . Further, if the enemy is not blinded
effectively, the dominating maneuvers of future "left hooks"
may be rudely interrupted by catastrophic encounters with
nuclear attacks and anthrax barrages or a battlefield engulfed
in clouds of poison gases .
Would the NBC and missile revolution in military affairs
trump the Warden RMA of parallel war/hyperwar? Would it
overcome the RMA identified by the analysts from Science
Applications International Corporation (SAIC) which emphasizes
the contributions that may be made by changes in a
combination of precision war, space war, information war, and
dominating maneuver technologies, organizations, and
strategies? Or will theater missile defenses emerge that can
neutralize an adversary armed with 20 to 40 NBC warheads
mounted on ballistic and cruise missiles?
Alternatively, even if effective ballistic and cruise missile
defenses are not developed, will the allies' possession of
overwhelming nuclear weapons preponderance be enough to
deter rogue states from using their more limited WMDs once
war has begun? Will deterrence still suffice to keep the peace
269
even if effective missile and air defenses are not available?
Clearly, US strategy planning and war fighting in the next 10
to 20 years will require highly sophisticated and well-integrated
political-military-technical efforts . Strategy is now being
rethought in the midst of what some believe to be a distinctive
new revolution in military affairs .
As the SAIC team has pointed out, the current RMA is
multifaceted and is demonstrating the simultaneous interplay
and reinforcement of technical, operational, organizational,
and socioeconomic developments. This "integrated system"
RMA is also pushing the reinforcement of technical, organi-
zational, and operational factors across all fighting mediums-
air, land, and sea. Within this integrated-system RMA, some
"new" or powerful areas of warfare are emerging-such as
long-range and standoff precision strikes, information warfare,
dominating maneuver emphasizing the strategic positioning of
forces, and space warfare.
John Warden has written that offensive technical and
military advancements, combined with suppression of enemy
defenses, now give the United States the ability to wreak
havoc on an adversary's entire target system . Such a degree of
military shock might be applied so quickly that it could
produce "paralysis ." In time, however, adversaries may
develop countermeasures to these US capabilities for parallel
war and hyperwar, and they may discover how to reduce
vulnerabilities of their operational, communications, and
logistics centers of gravity .
Defensive measures are expected, and they usually can be
countered ; but if an adversary also is capable of using
weapons of mass destruction, the stakes and the effects on
strategy could shift substantially . WMD threats by radical,
aggressive regimes may well force the United States into very
different kinds of strategies . New modes of combat may have
to emphasize mobile, indirect, dispersed, standoff, and
disengaged operations until forces in the combat area can be
defended against air and missile attacks .
The United States and its allies cannot risk putting large
concentrations of troops and equipment in the way of a WMD
attack . The magnitude of the casualties could exceed anything
experienced by the United States in a single battle . For
270
example, where the United States assembles a force like we
fielded in the Gulf War or like we maintain in the Korea-Japan
area, more US troops might be killed in a single one-day WMD
attack than were lost in all the years of the Vietnam War,
Korean War, or even in World War II.
In such megarisk situations, time-honored principles of war
like "mass" may have to be reinterpreted to emphasize
concentrating firepower rather than troops. An alternative is to
rely more on constant movement, dispersion, outranging the
enemy, deceiving the adversary about one's own centers of
gravity, blinding enemy reconnaissance, and emphasizing
disengaged "remote" combat until the enemy's WMD and other
"big guns" are silenced. Unless the enemy WMD can be
eliminated in initial counterforce strikes, maintaining the
offensive initiative in combat may have to wait until we can
erect missile and air defenses against them.
When confronting a "Saddam Hussein with WMD," it may
become essential to develop and deploy an airtight air defense
system and an effective multilayered missile defense in the
regions threatened . Theater missile defense is the most
important ingredient needed to cope with radical and well-
armed regimes.
No less than a two-tiered defense system, where each layer
has around a 90 percent probability of kill against an
incoming enemy reentry vehicle, will be adequate to protect
US overseas expeditionary forces, allied capitals, ports, air
bases, naval convoys, and population centers . Anything less
and the problems of dealing with NBC-armed adversaries
begin to swamp the solutions. Without such protection, it
could become suicidal to introduce an army into a port or put
it into a region through local air bases. Absent effective missile
and air defenses, WMD can scare off possible allies from
joining a coalition against our enemy and raise the body count
so high as to make US power projection into the region
politically untenable . It could even threaten the outright
defeat of US and allied forces in the field .
Without effective theater missile defenses, the costs of
engaging such a NASTI may far exceed the gains in defeating
him . Without effective missile defenses, it may even be
27 1
advisable to revise US foreign policy commitments so we are
not compelled to act against such lethal regional enemies.
On the other hand, the NASTI may be deterrable by allied
superiority in WMD, or the early deployment of effective active
defenses may help to persuade him not to escalate the conflict
and to abstain from using his nuclear, biological, or chemical
weapons . If such escalation dominance results in intrawar
deterrence of the enemy's use of his worst weapons, then the
United States and its allies may be free to exploit their
technological edge via information warfare, precision strikes
with advanced conventional weapons, space assets, and other
strategies and techniques .
The development and employment of information warfare
against an adversary's command and control systems, or
against its leader's ability to appear legitimate in the eyes of
its population, also looms as a potent new warfare technique .
In 1991 information technology already was changing war
fighting . The global positioning system allowed US and allied
ground units attacking the Iraqi army's flank to maintain their
positions accurately on the Kuwaiti desert even during blinding
sandstorms. Self-navigating data drones can be employed to
search autonomously across numerous information networks .
Belligerents have already used propaganda via the Internet.
Vulnerability to computer virus warfare and other nonlethal
disabling technologies now has the attention of national
security planners .
While the pursuit of nuclear weapons by rogue regimes is
alarming, cheaper and quite lethal biological and chemical
technologies are also being developed. The Iraqi biological
warfare threat greatly concerned coalition military planners
during the Gulf War. Saddam Hussein had large chemical
weapons programs under way, and Iraq had begun to
manufacture sizable quantities of BW agents prior to that war.
As Mayer and Kadlec have written, biological warfare weapons
are easy to produce, and it is estimated that at least two dozen
countries have them. Some of the most dangerous among the
BW resources are anthrax (bacillus anthracis) and the
botulinum toxin.
As Mayer tells us, a cult in Japan spread the Sarin agent in
Tokyo's subways, killing 12 Japanese citizens and harming
272
5,500 more. This group also had begun researching on and
stockpiling biological weapons when Japanese police and
security forces intervened . They unsuccessfully tried one
biological weapons attack prior to their chemical weapons
attack on the subway system . Biological warfare programs are
hard to detect in the development and production stages, and
biological agents could cause severe casualties if introduced
into the water, air, or food supplies of crowded populations or
unprotected armed forces.
Moreover, as Kadlec writes, biological agents can be easily
adapted for use with commercially available sprayers, thus
lending themselves to covert applications . Biological agents
could be used to conduct economic warfare, and the agricultural
disasters they cause may easily be disguised as natural events.
While the United States currently enjoys a significant
conventional forces technical edge over likely rivals, this edge
can be lost if a future adversary masters the tools of the last
RMA or the next one. Present US and allied advantages will
generate countermeasures by future enemies that neutralize or
leapfrog them . There is little doubt that the continuous game of
measure, countermeasure, counter-countermeasure, and so on,
will continue into the twenty-first century as strategists and
scientists introduce new technologies and applications.
Already, the United States and its allies are encountering
rogue states newly armed with weapons of mass destruction
that were formerly held only by the major powers. This will
affect the ability to project power into those regions and will
require a thorough reexamination of how future major
regional conflicts are to be fought. Soon, too, the United States
and its allies may encounter new modes of warfare-in the
realms of land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace-through the use
of innovations in computer-enhanced information technologies,
digitized battlefields, space-based military systems, precision-
guided weapons, theater missile defenses, and nuclear,
chemical, and biological weapons .
Future enemies are unlikely to confront the United States in
a straight force-on-force conventional battle. Rather, they
might use asymmetrical strategies and techniques that utilize
NBC weapons, guerrilla warfare techniques, state-sponsored
terrorist attacks, satellite signal jamming, destruction of allied
273
ground stations that receive information from space assets,
and other information warfare techniques to level the playing
field and achieve their aims.
Unfortunately, Joint Vision 2010 gives few answers as to
how the United States and its friends can cope with such
strategies . More hard work and thinking are called for to
inform the strategies and acquisition programs needed to cope
with asymmetrical threats. National security is a continuous
process . Those who rest on their present military advantages
rather than seeking continuous improvements to cope with
future threats and changing conditions will be left behind,
consigned to defeat in the next era.
US and allied strategists, scientists, and operators must
continue peering hard into the future to ensure mastery of these
trends . This will help us stay ahead of diligent competitors and
will give our military forces the highest probability of victory on
the battlefields of the future .
Note
1 . Andrew F. Krepinevich, "Cavalry to Computer: The Pattern of Military
Revolutions," Th National Interest no. 37 (fall 1994), 30-12. The 12 RMAs the
author identifies since the fourteenth century include: (1) the infantry
revolution in the Hundred Year's War where the six-foot longbow enabled
archers to penetrate the armor of cavalrymen; (2) the artillery revolution which
helped breach the walls of cities and castles; (3) the naval revolution when sails
and cannons made oar-driven ships obsolete ; (4) the sixteenth-century fortress
revolution in which thicker walls and more intricate multilayered construction
allowed static defenses to offset the earlier artillery revolution ; (5) the
Napoleonic revolution that harnessed the joint tools of the mass nationalistic
army and the industrial revolution to a new strategy of independent marches
and concentrations on the battlefield that hitherto had been impossible; (6) the
land warfare revolution brought on by the introduction of railroad networks,
the telegraph, improved range and accuracy of weapons due to rifling, and
rapid-firing weapons of the late nineteenth century; (7) the naval revolution of
the mid-to-late nineteenth century where wooden sailing ships with
short-range cannons were replaced by steam-driven iron ships with long-range
cannons, culminating in the dreadnoughts of the early twentieth century; and
(8-10) the intrawar RMAs due to mechanization, aviation, and information
transmission improvements . At the end of World War II, perhaps the most
significant RMA of all began: (11) the nuclear revolution. This revolution in
military affairs has recently been followed by (12) the information revolution
based on digitization and computer applications .
274
About the Contributors
James Blackwell is the assistant director, Strategic Assess-

ment Center, SAIL . He was previously the director of political
military studies and senior fellow at the Center for Strategic
and International Studies in Washington, D.C . A retired US
Army officer, he earned his PhD at Tufts University, The
Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, taught at West Point,
and is the author of various publications including Thunder in
the Desert: The Strategy and Tactics of the Persian Gulf War
(Bantam) .
Richard Blanchfield is a senior analyst, Strategic Assessment
Center, SAIL. He specializes in research on the revolution in
military affairs. In the past he served as a research analyst on
the Gulf War Air Power Survey. A former US Marine Corps
officer, Mr Blanchfield has 28 years' experience as an
educator, administrator, pilot, operator, and planner, including
12 years of first-hand experience as an analyst working on
political-military, national defense, and international relations
issues. He served in his last military assignment as director,
Studies and Analysis Division, USMC Warfighting Center.
Much of his service career was focused on security issues in
the Pacific or Middle East. A graduate of the US Naval War
College (MA, national security and strategic studies), Mr
Blanchfield also has an MA in International Relations from
Salve Regina University.
Lawrence E. Grinter, professor of Asian studies, Air War
College, teaches and writes on Asian and global security issues
including WMD proliferation . He is the co-editor/author of
numerous publications including Security, Strategy and Policy
Responses in the Paces Rim (Rienner), East Asian Conflict
Zones (St. Martin's) and Looking Back on the Vietnam War
(Greenwood), as well as 35 scholarly articles . Dr Grinter earned
his PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Dale Hill is a senior analyst, Strategic Assessment Center,
SAIC. His current work is focused on aerospace warfare in the
study of the revolution in military affairs, where he has
directed seminars, war games, simulations, and research . A
275
former Air Force fighter pilot, Mr Hill commanded an F-16
squadron. and served in senior positions as military assistant
to the assistant secretary of the Air Force and as a military
planner in Checkmate during Operations Desert Shield and
Desert Storm. Mr Hill graduated from the Industrial College of
the Armed Forces, the Marine Command and Staff College,
and the Air War College . He has a Master's degree in
international relations from Oklahoma State University.
Charles A. Homer, General, USAF, Retired, left the Air Force

in 1995, after a 37year career. His last position was as
commander in chief, North American Aerospace Defense
Command and the US Space Command . During Operations
Desert Shield and Desert Storm, General Horner commanded
all US and allied air operations . A command pilot, he has more
than 5,300 hours in a variety of fighter aircraft, including
F-16s, F-15s, and F-4s . General Horner was commissioned in
1958, and commanded wings, air divisions, the Ninth air
force, and US Central Command Air Forces . General Homer
flew over 130 combat missions in Indochina . He is a graduate
of the University of Iowa, and has professional military
education degrees from the Armed Forces Staff College, the
Industrial College of the Armed Forces, and the National War
College.
Robert Kadlec, Lt Col, USAF, is a physician assigned to the

Office of the Secretary of Defense for International Security
Policy as a senior assistant for counterproliferation . A
specialist in biological warfare issues, he is a distinguished
graduate of the US Air Force Academy . He holds a doctor of
medicine and a master's degree of Tropical Medicine and
Hygiene from the Uniformed Services University of the Health
Sciences . He also holds a master's degree in national security
studies from Georgetown University .
George Kraus is a senior analyst in the Strategic Assess-

ment Center of SAIC . He has an extensive background in
military and naval operational and intelligence analysis and of
comparative analysis, technology assessment, and war gaming
design. He specializes in information war research and has
taught courses in his specialties at NDU and the Naval War
276
College. A retired US Navy commander, Mr Kraus worked as a
military assistant to the director of net assessment, Office of
the Secretary of Defense, and worked in Naval intelligence for
many years. He has provided numerous research papers on
current Russian security issues, submarine issues, command
and control, information war, robot warfare, space military
issues, and military issues relating to the former Soviet Union.
A graduate of the Naval War College, Mr Kraus has an MA in
international relations from Salve Regina College and an
undergraduate degree in political science from MIT.
FYed Littlepage is deputy assistant, Strategic Assessment

Center, SAIC, working on contract research on topics such
as the revolution in military affairs. A former USAF officer,
he has worked as the assistant director of research, Office of
the Secretary of Defense, Net Assessment, served as
assistant air attache to the American Embassy in Moscow, was
director of curriculum of the USAF Soviet Awareness Team,
Directorate of Soviet Affairs, and served as a Minuteman
combat crew commander . He is a Russian language and area
specialist, and earned an MS in strategic intelligence at the
Defense Intelligence College. He has published various articles
that focus on the Soviet Union, the newly independent
states, military tactics, and other intelligence matters .
Terry N. Mayer, Lt Col, USAF, is a master navigator with

over 3,000 hours in HC-130, VC-135, and VC-137 aircraft .
He served staff tours at every echelon from wing to air staff
in various capacities . During the Gulf War, he was initial
cadre on the Checkmate planning cell and later was drafted
by DIA to lead a tiger team charged with finding a method of
conducting a preemptive strike against Iraqi biological
warfare storage and production facilities-a team that was
awarded the National Intelligence Meritorious Unit Citation
by the director of Central Intelligence . Most recently, Lt Col
Mayer was the commander, 615th Air Mobility Support
Group, Provisional, responsible for restructuring the concept
of air mobility and global reach into the Pacific . He has an
MBA from Chapman College and is a graduate of the Air War
College .
277
Jeffrey McKitrick is the director, Strategic Assessment
Center, for Science Applications International Corporation
(SAIC) in McLean, Virginia. Previously, he served as the special
assistant on national security and foreign policy issues to Vice
President Dan Quayle . While on duty as an active duty US Army
officer, he served as military advisor to the vice president ; as
the military assistant to the director of net assessments,
Andrew Marshall ; and as an assistant professor at the US
Military Academy at West Point, where he taught courses in
international relations, national security, and economics . He
earned master's degrees at both the US Naval Academy and at
the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies,
after completing an undergraduate degree at Indiana
University.
James W. McLendon, Colonel, USAF (MS, Troy State

University) is a career intelligence officer . His experience
includes national, ground tactical (mobile), and airborne
operations . His overseas assignments include Taiwan (twice),
Vietnam, Germany (twice), the United Kingdom, and Saudi
Arabia . Stateside, he has served on the staff of Air Force
Intelligence Command (AFIC) (and its predecessors) three
times and was the AFIC Liaison Officer to the Air Force Special
Operations Command prior to attending the Air War College.
Colonel McLendon has commanded three intelligence
squadrons, is a graduate of Squadron Officer School
(residence), Air Command and Staff College (residence), and
Air War College. He is assigned to Headquarters Air Force
Special Operations Command as the director of intelligence.
Barry R. Schneider, professor of international relations, Air

War College, writes and teaches a variety of issues concerning
twenty-first century warfare, conflict and change, WMD
proliferation issues, the revolution in military affairs, and
international flash points . He has previously served as a
college professor, defense analyst, foreign affairs officer
(ACDA), congressional staffer, and active speaker and
editor/writer on national security issues . He is the author and
editor of many publications, including two books : Missiles for
the Nineties: ICBMs and Strategic Policy (Westview) and
Current Issues in U.S. Defense Policy (Praeger) . Currently, he is
278
finishing a book on "Counterproliferation : Military Responses
to Proliferation Threats," Dr Schneider earned his PhD in
International Relations from Columbia University.
George J. Stein, chairman, Department of Conflict and

Change, Air War College, writes and teaches courses on
information warfare, European security issues, and future
strategies . Before joining the Air War College, Professor Stein
was on the faculty of the School of Interdisciplinary Studies,
Miami University and Miami's European Center in
Luxembourg . He recently published "A Theory of Informaton
Warfare : Preparing for 2020," in Airpower Journal (Spring
1995), and has received the Meritorious Civilian Service Award
for his contribution to the USAF chief of staffs study
Spacecast 2020. Dr Stein received his MA from Penn State and
his PhD from Indiana University .
Richard Szafranski, Colonel, USAF, holds the National

Military Strategy Chair at the Air War College. His BA is from
Florida State University and his MA is from Central Michigan
University . Colonel Szafranski's previous assignments include
command at the squadron, group, and wing levels . Colonel
Szafranski commanded the 7th Bomb Wing during 1991-1993,
and was the commander of Peterson AFB, Colorado, in 1988 .
He has served at headquarters Strategic Air Command, the
North American Aerospace Defense Command, US Space
Command, and the Air Force Space Command. He is widely
published in Airpower Journal, Armed Forces Quarterly,
Parameters, Strategic Review, Proceedings, etc.
John A. Warden III, Colonel, USAF, Retired, completed 30

years of active duty in the United States Air Force in July
1995 . He is a command pilot with over 3,000 hours in F-4s,
F-15s, and OV-1 Os. A graduate of the Air Force Academy, the Air
Force Institute of Technology, and the National War College,
Colonel Warden flew 266 combat missions in Southeast Asia.
He also played a leading role in planning and supporting the
air campaign in the 1990-91 Gulf War. His book, The Air
Campaign, is used in military schools around the world . Col
Warden's last active duty assignment was as commandant, Air
Command and Staff College .
279

Battlefield Future2 PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Battlefield Future2 PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Battlefield Future2 PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

BATTLEFIELD OF THE FUTURE

21st Century Warfare Issues

The Air War College Studies in National Security was

Air War College

Air University Press

First Printing September 1995

For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents

1 Elements of the Present RMA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

2 System Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

3 China and Iraq-Comparative Sizes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

1 System Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

2 US Offensive Biological Weapons Agents

3 Estimated Cumulative Losses to the US from

Barry R. Schneider & Lawrence E . Grinter

Principles of War for the

Implications for Military Strategy

So how do you fight a NBC-armed sponsor of terrorism and

Seven of these principles were extracted from the works of

by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. These

The Principle of Mass in Warfare

The principle of mass suggests the wisdom of concentrating

notions of mass-that is massing of their armies . US forces

Indeed, in combat with an adversary armed with WMD, one

should not be engaged in the first place, provided that is an

The first approach is the same approach that the United

dominance to deter the possible Iraqi use of available BW and

Some would argue that if the United States is faced with

able to jockey just out of the range of enemy artillery, tanks,

designed to fight a war that US commanders should attempt to

Inchon invasion during the Korean War? Indeed, would the US

The Principle of Maneuver in Warfare

Perhaps far greater emphasis will have to be placed on

presenting the enemy with the opportunity for a knockout

The Principle of Offensive Initiative in Warfare

One of the principles of war found in US military doctrine is

Unfortunately, as two Army analysts point out, "the

Col John Warden, one of the air architects of the allied

Similarly, US air doctrine emphasizes the use of new

Will the enemy escalate at the end or will he be deterred from

allied forces in the region, or allied countries, there may be a

For these and a number of other reasons, reliance on

The Principle of Unity of Command in Warfare

Another principle of war laid out by Gen J. F. C . Fuller is

The challenge to effective command, control, and communica-

The enemy WMD threat might even extend beyond the

" Military forces may have to be guided and organized

The Principle of Clear

Wars, like chess matches, are generally characterized by

military operation towards a clearly defined, decisive, and

campaign (150 US dead as opposed to predictions that ranged

politically in Iraq, and Iraq has been able to reconstitute much

its opponents inside Iraq and aggressive war against its

The Principle of Security in Warfare

Good security means the enemy cannot achieve strategic

Moreover, as Saddam Hussein learned in June 1981 when

technology from the newly independent states of the former

never permit the enemy to acquire an unexpected advantage .

Vulnerability to surprise and attack can be reduced by a

Keeping allied escalation dominance to deter enemy