The Insider

Military leaders are still trying to get their hands around what it means to fight in cyberspace. From the outside, it’s hard to tell exactly how far the Pentagon has come in moving the idea of cyber warfare from a subject of study to a subject of doctrine writing and practice.

According to Air Force Brig. Gen. Michael Basla, the deputy in the Joint Staff’s J-6 directorate, the development of the intellectual underpinning of cyber warfare is not yet completed.

Fundamental questions remain to be answered, he told us at AUSA  yesterday, including “What constitutes a cyber attack?” and “How do we integrated cyber in the other warfighting domains?”

Or, put differently, at what point does a cyber conflict turn into a shooting war?

“We don’t have a strong answer to that,” Basla said.

According to the general, officials also are wondering how deterrence, a concept that brings back memories of Cold War nuclear arms racing, could be applied in cyberspace.

“There are huge efforts going on in studying all those different pieces,” Basla added.

At U.S. Strategic Command, where officials know a thing or two about deterrence, that very subject was up for discussion at a January 2008 workshop.

The two-day event produced a collection of papers by attendees, including a piece by defense strategist Tom Barnett, which we’ve posted here.

The military produced two key documents in recent years, both classified, guiding goings-on in the cyberspace arena: The 2006 National Military Strategy for Cyberspace Operations and the companion implementation plan. Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld signed the strategy on Dec. 11, 2006, in one of his last moves as Pentagon chief. His successors signed the implementation plan on Oct. 1, 2007.

The implementation plan contains 42 different “activities” that are being executed by “a number of different organizations,” according to Basla.

The Army has unveiled an important new addition to its doctrinal canon: Field Manual 3-07: Stability Operations. Yesterday’s Washington Post summed it up nicely:

The Army on Monday will unveil an unprecedented doctrine that declares nation-building missions will probably become more important than conventional warfare and defines "fragile states" that breed crime, terrorism and religious and ethnic strife as the greatest threat to U.S. national security.The doctrine, which has generated intense debate in the U.S. military establishment and government, holds that in coming years, American troops are not likely to engage in major ground combat against hostile states as they did in Iraq and Afghanistan, but instead will frequently be called upon to operate in lawless areas to safeguard populations and rebuild countries. (full article)

This new manual is being released today as the annual AUSA convention begins in Washington. It is the latest installment in a wider effort to bring the Army’s doctrine in line with strategic guidance from the Office of the Secretary of Defense to prepare for an array of threats much wider than traditional state-on-state conflicts.

Earlier this year the Army updated its keystone doctrine, Field Manual 3-0: Operations, shifting emphasis from conventional to a “full spectrum” operations, a change that places post-conflict stability operations on par with offensive and defensive engagement. That change was made in accordance with Defense Department directive, 3000.05, issued in November 2005 that defined stability operations as “a core U.S. military mission” to be given “priority comparable to combat operations.”

The Washington Post last week ran a good piece on the Pentagon’s use of information operations in Iraq. The story is based on a contract awarded last month to four public relations firms. Under the contract, the Post reports, the companies are charged with producing “media campaigns” that cast U.S. objectives in Iraq in a positive light and convince residents of the barbarism of the insurgency.

The application of information operations during future wars likely will be near the top of the agenda for the new defense leadership. The field is considered key to irregular warfare, which many defense officials believe to be the predominant type of conflict facing America in the foreseeable future.

An August draft version of a yet-unreleased policy directive governing IW says information ops are crucial for neutralizing “adversary propaganda” during Iraq-style counterinsurgency campaigns, as we reported in September.

Exactly how this should be done isn’t all that clear yet, according to experts and officials, who say some thorny issues remain to be resolved.

For example, one question is who should be in charge of conducting information operations. “IO authorities have been a subject of much contention from the outset over a decade ago,” one expert writes.

While the authority to employ IO initially rested solely with the “national command authority,” which consists of the president and the defense secretary, the combatant commanders were given more power over IO some years ago, this expert said. “Now ((it is)) a bit of pulling and hauling, with many hoping a balanced result will ensue.”

There also were instances of friction among the COCOMs themselves, we’re told. One official described a “food fight” breaking out at one point over operational control of IO forces and equipment between U.S. Strategic Command and U.S. Central Command as part of the military’s “Countering Adversary Use of the Internet” program.

That program targets the online propaganda efforts of violent Islamic extremists, we reported last month.

In that context, the now-declassified Rumsfeld-era information operations roadmap, from 2003, remains a great read.

For the first time in months, the Air Force has a nearly complete senior leadership staff. The Senate voted yesterday evening to confirm Michael Donley as Air Force secretary and Lt. Gen. William Fraser as the vice chief of staff.

Donley -- who has been serving in an acting capacity since June 21 -- becomes the Air Force's 22nd secretary. But his time as the service's top civilian could be limited, though, as a new administration will enter the White House in January and likely make new appointments.

As for Fraser, the president must offer the official appointment to the general before he can assume his new position, according to an Air Force statement released last night. The general -- who now serves as the assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- will assume the vice chief of staff position on Oct 9.

The position of under secretary of the Air Force -- which has been vacant since Ronald Sega stepped down in August 2007 -- and assistant secretary of the Air Force for installations, environment and logistics, remain the only unfilled senior positions. Kevin Billings has been serving in the assistant secretary role since this summer.

In addition, the Senate has confirmed Air Force Lt. Gen. Craig McKinley to receive his fourth star and lead the National Guard Bureau. McKinley becomes the first four-star general in the NGB's history, as we reported this morning.

The move reflects changes made in the Fiscal Year 2008 Defense Authorization Act, which provided a fourth star for the chief of the National Guard Bureau, mandated that at least one deputy head of U.S. Northern Command be a Guard officer and expanded the bureau’s charter.

McKinley, who is the director of the Air National Guard, will succeed Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, who was confirmed on Thursday as the first National Guard deputy commander for NORTHCOM, according to a National Guard Bureau statement.

A growing consensus among national security experts holds that in order for the U.S. military to be successful in the types of missions it is fighting, it needs better support from the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. But for that to happen, these other federal agencies need a dramatic boost in resources, some of those experts said this week.

"We have more members in military bands than we have foreign service officers," said retired Lt. Col. John Nagl, at a panel discussion yesterday hosted by the Center for a New American Security, where he is a senior fellow.

While Nagl said he likes a John Philip Sousa march as much as the next guy, he is willing to scrap bands in favor of compact discs if it means defense dollars can be spared for the State Department. "We need a bigger State Department more than we need a bigger Army," said Nagl. "I believe that very strongly."

At the same event, a discussion titled "Officership In a Time of War," Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the Army's vice chief of staff, voiced similar sentiments.

"I'd like to see a surge in the State Department," he said, crediting both "kinetic and non-kinetic solutions" for the decrease in violence in Iraq.

And in that vein, Chiarelli ascribed the recent decline in violence not just to the fabled surge of additional troops, but to the Anbar Awakening -- the movement among Sunni tribes to act as security forces alongside coalition troops -- and the work of people like Paul Brinkley, the deputy under secretary of defense for business transformation, who led the Task Force for Business and Stability Operations in Iraq.

"I happen to believe it's more than just the five BCTs ((brigade combat teams)) that are responsible for the security situation that we see today," said. Gen. Peter Chiarelli.

A new report from the RAND Corp., "Integrating Instruments of Power and Influence," takes up similar themes. The report argues that to better prepare for future military interventions, "the United States needs to shift substantial resources to the Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development, and military-civilian efforts must be integrated from top to bottom."

It also recommends:

"A major increase is needed in U.S. resources for non-military activities -- where the ratio between military and non-military national security spending is now 17 to 1. This should include adding at least 6,600 Foreign Service officers for the State Department, 2000 for USAID, and recreating a separate “United States Information Agency-like” agency."

The provisional reconstruction teams in Iraq are good examples of military and civilian officials teaming up, performing tasks for which they are best suited, said an Army colonel in the audience at the CNAS event.

"If you marry the military's capacity with discrete civilian expertise, it is a winning combination," said Michele Flournoy, president and co-founder of the Center for a New American Security. She said the military can provide security, transportation, planning and expertise to better enable their less-resourced civilian counterparts to do their jobs.

Tomorrow DC-based defense reporters get to question former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig, a top adviser to Barack Obama and a guy rumored to be on the short list for defense secretary should Obama win.

We'll have much more tomorrow on what he has to say, but today we'll take a brief look at what he's been saying of late.

First up, our story, from September, on Danzig and former Defense Secretary William Perry, also an Obama backer.

Next, from July, this National Journal interview touches on some key topics including the state of the defense budget. A taste:

NJ: How do you tame the defense budget, given the huge and increasing costs of long-deferred equipment modernization programs?

Danzig: There's a persistent problem with cost overruns. The recent performance of the Pentagon has been unusually bad. It's very difficult, but I think we can do a lot better than we've seen from this administration. This administration got off to a very bad start when it put $10 billion into missile defense and took it out of the normal acquisition process. It compounded that when it made it apparent that it didn't like bad news, and you had turnover in the heads of ((the Pentagon Office of)) Program Analysis and Evaluation. You have to create an atmosphere of honesty and candor.

NJ: But where do we cut spending?

Danzig: That's a very appropriate question. The Hindu religion has a goddess, Kali, who is the goddess of destruction, and we need a Kali: We need some creative destruction. We need the ability to recognize that some programs shouldn't be pursued and some pressing expenses need to be cut back. The answer to that isn't ideological; it's got to be based on a one-by-one look at the programs. I would say the Obama watchword is pragmatism.

And:

• Here's a bio on Danzig, from the Navy.
• This Newsweek piece from August gives Danzig's view of how Obama would handle Russia.
• And then there's Danzig . . . on Winnie the Pooh. Really.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates gave a speech yesterday that's receiving a ton of attention, so we've put it up here.

It really must be read in full, but here's a choice excerpt:

In the past I have expressed frustration over the defense bureaucracy’s priorities and lack of urgency when it came to the current conflicts – that for too many in the Pentagon it has been business as usual, as opposed to a wartime footing and a wartime mentality. When referring to “Next-War-itis,” I was not expressing opposition to thinking about and preparing for the future. It would be irresponsible not to do so – and the overwhelming majority of people in the Pentagon, the services, and the defense industry do just that. My point was simply that we must not be so preoccupied with preparing for future conventional and strategic conflicts that we neglect to provide both short-term and long-term all the capabilities necessary to fight and win conflicts such as we are in today.

Support for conventional modernization programs is deeply embedded in our budget, in our bureaucracy, in the defense industry, and in Congress. My fundamental concern is that there is not commensurate institutional support – including in the Pentagon – for the capabilities needed to win the wars we are in, and of the kinds of missions we are most likely to undertake in the future.

What is dubbed the war on terror is, in grim reality, a prolonged, world-wide irregular campaign – a struggle between the forces of violent extremism and moderation. In the long-term effort against terrorist networks and other extremists, we know that direct military force will continue to have a role. But we also understand that over the long term, we cannot kill or capture our way to victory. Where possible, kinetic operations should be subordinate to measures to promote better governance, economic programs to spur development, and efforts to address the grievances among the discontented from which the terrorists recruit. It will take the patient accumulation of quiet successes over a long time to discredit and defeat extremist movements and their ideology. As the National Defense Strategy puts it, success will require us to “tap the full strength of America and its people” – civilian and military, public sector and private.

We are unlikely to repeat another Iraq or Afghanistan anytime soon – that is, forced regime change followed by nation-building under fire. But that doesn’t mean we may not face similar challenges in a variety of locales. Where possible, our strategy is to employ indirect approaches – primarily through building the capacity of partner governments and their security forces – to prevent festering problems from turning into crises that require costly and controversial American military intervention. In this kind of effort, the capabilities of our allies and partners may be as important as our own, and building their capacity, is arguably as important, if not more so than the fighting we do ourselves.