New Strategy, But The Old Challenges Have Not Disappeared

There is a document called the "National Security Strategy," and it is published on the White House website (www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html). You would not be surprised to discover that the strategy is fairly straightforward, general in nature and bereft of assertions that would generate much argument. For example, it has sections entitled "Champion Aspirations for Human Dignity" and "Work with Others to Defuse Regional Conflicts." The version now on the site dates from 2006, not a long time ago as strategies go. The very nature of a strategy is that it doesn't change often, and indeed the word strategy is derived from the Greek word that literally means "that which is spread out."

Writer Josh White in The Washington Post reports today that Secretary of Defense Gates recently approved a new National Security Strategy, but that it hasn't been released yet. This is notable for a few reasons.

One interesting question is how White knows what is in the document if it is not yet public. He reports that a defense industry news service, InsideDefense.com, provided the information to The Washington Post, but you can find it on that site yourself if you register and pay for the privilege. But how did the news service get it? It is probably the result of a legitimate flow of information. Furthermore, those who study Washington, or spend time there, understand the nature and purpose of leaks as well. You may not like the process---most folks think it is cowardly, destructive and disgraceful---but it is the way both government and the fourth estate operate. More about this, perhaps, another time.

Second, the document on the White House website is for public consumption and is an amalgamation---and a distillation---of a number of studies conducted by the executive departments. Logic drives the assumption that the single biggest contributor to the assessment is the Secretary of Defense, and his prints are always on it. One could easily see the influence of Rumsfeld on previous iterations, and the new one sports the obvious mark of Robert Gates.

While the published version doesn't contain much detail, it is an excellent window into the administration's general strategic thinking, and any significant change from a previous version will be remarkable. The thrust of the new one is different from the last.

In a departure, the new strategy focuses on the long war that will be required to protect us from terror. Since 2001, it has seemed that both the government and the people have been preoccupied with the war on terror, but actually the government's strategic view has been that it is an unpleasant but relatively small bump. The principal reason for this anomaly was Rumsfeld's unrealistic assumptions that democracy was a form of government that could be established easily everywhere and that defeating terrorists was merely a function of applying precision-guided munitions. So the national security strategy reflected a world view that seemed dangerously outdated to Secretary Gates.

The result is now an emphasis on the conduct of unconventional war in a hostile environment dominated by stateless actors and by governments seeking to throw western states from the world stage. This translates into a force structure that needs to contain many more special operations forces, intelligence units, and quick-acting light infantry organizations.

What's wrong with that? Well, nothing, if Southwest Asia is considered in a vacuum. But Islamic revolutionism isn't the only threat we face. In a reprise of the world situation decades ago, both Russia and China are becoming difficult and are potential adversaries. Russia's Putin (out of office but still in control) is an old-line Soviet-era goon and is inured to antagonistic behavior, but he is more belligerent also because he perceives that the United States, by drafting former Soviet-bloc countries into NATO, is expansionist. Whatever the motivation, Russia's world view is increasingly antithetical to ours, and so is China's.

Even with few or no troops in Iraq, we would find it impossible to field a force capable of fighting terror in the field and also be capable of limited conventional engagement because the force is so small. It is no more logical for Gates to pump most of our resources into the fight against an unconventional enemy than it was for Rumsfeld to assume that this same adversary was a pushover.

Having made a number of strategic mistakes and misjudgments, things are more difficult than they would have been otherwise. We do not have good options, and one would be wise to ignore both bureaucrats and politicians who assert that we do.