The Department of Defense officially
recognizes nine principles of war1 to
guide the thinking of today's military leaders. These principles
have guided the planning of military campaigns from the American
Civil War to the conflict in Iraq. The Department's Office of Force
Transformation convened this conference to assess the application
of the principles to future warfare. The principles, however,
contain a fatal flaw that makes them particularly ill suited to
guiding military decision-making in the 21st century.
Forging, deploying, and maintaining
fighting forces have been--and remain--the lifeblood of war. Yet
remarkably, the principles of war do not reflect the imperative of
creating and maintaining military power, particularly the role of
the private sector. The lack of attention that the principles
confer on retaining preponderance in power makes their application
to 21st century wars particularly problematic. Many of the most
potentially disruptive and dramatic changes in future conflicts may
be driven not by how battles are fought, but in how the instruments
of power are marshaled by states and non-state actors. This is
further proof, perhaps, that the principles should be considered a
historical relic, best left in the past. If there was ever an age
when critical thinking about war could be reduced to a simple set
of maxims, it is long over.
Spheres of Conflict
The purpose of the principles of war is to
encourage commanders to channel and focus combat power on the
decisive points of battle. 2 However,
modern wars are not won or lost only on the battlefield. In the
modern age, virtually all the growth in nation-states occurs in the
private sector. Tapping the manpower, wealth, innovation, and
expertise of the private sector is a prerequisite for war. Here the
principles are of little help.
Revamping the principles of war to
encompass all the elements of war, both public and private, will be
a daunting task. The factors that most dramatically affect the
future conduct of war may have more to do with the ways and means
by which national combat power is generated by both state and
non-state actors. These factors include emerging technologies, the
increasing capacity of the private sector to perform traditional
military missions, and the decreasing ability of developed states
to allocate productive resources to warfighting tasks. Together,
these could significantly diminish the capacity of states to shape
how the instruments of war are employed and severely limit the
ability of commanders to determine their own destiny in battle.
War and Disruptive Technologies
Technology has always been a factor in
shaping the future of war, but its impact is far from
deterministic. Much contemporary discussion about military history
and the impact of technology on military transformation misses the
mark. Technology does not define future ways of war. As Williamson
Murray and MacGregor Knox concluded in an anthology of the dynamics
of military revolution, scientific development and new weapons
systems may stimulate change, but the conduct of warfare is shaped
by larger economic, political, and geo-strategic factors.3
The impact of future technologies will
likely be the same. They might unleash or accelerate social and
cultural changes that reshape the nature of war, but it is unlikely
they will simplify or define how combat is conducted. Technology
will always be a "wild card" in war's future. Future technological
change, however, will diverge in character from the experiences of
the last century. Since World War II, militaries have largely
pioneered the technologies that were the most critical to military
competition. In the United States, for example, from jet aircraft
and nuclear weapons to stealth technologies and precision-guided
weapons, the Pentagon largely set the course of investments in
science and technology, shaped research and development programs,
and determined how disruptive new technologies would be applied to
battle. The impact of the public sector defense research and effort
was pervasive and dramatic.4 The 21st
century will be different.
In the future, the private sector--not the
government--will likely make the largest investments in the basic
research and product development that create the technologies with
the greatest capacity to change the nature of combat. In turn, how
the private sector chooses to develop these technologies, apart
from the guidance or prohibitions established by governments, may
determine how future conflicts are fought.
Trends in information technology
development offer a clear example. During the Cold War, the
government financed much of the cutting-edge research on computers
and related electronics that resulted in new combat capabilities.
Today, the government is virtually dependent on the private sector
for advances in information technology. One of the emerging
operational concepts of 21st century warfare is often called
"network-centric" operations Network-centric operations generate
increased operational effectiveness by networking sensors, decision
makers, and forces to achieve shared awareness, increased speed of
command, higher tempo of operations, greater efficiency, and a
higher degree of self-synchronization. Network-centric
capabilities, however, are being assembled with systems integration
technologies, many of which are already widely commercially
available, including technologies that facilitate passing high
volumes of secure digital data, creating ad hoc networks,
integrating disparate data bases, and linking various communication
systems over cable, fiber-optic, wireless, and satellite networks.
In effect, many of the concepts for network-centric warfare and how
it is being implemented are significantly influenced by how the
private sector has evolved in a 21st century knowledge economy.
The growing dependence of modern
militaries on commercial information technologies illustrates one
way in which 21st century warfare will be different. Emerging
technologies with the greatest potential to change the nature of
military competition are being spearheaded not by defense
departments and ministries, but by individual entrepreneurs,
multi-national conglomerates, start-up companies, investors,
stockholders, and Wal-Mart shoppers. Militaries are already
grappling with understanding and harnessing information
technologies and the prospects for cyber-warfare, but these
challenges may represent merely the dawn of an age in which
military competition is defined by commercial research and
development and consumer choice.
Several candidate technologies have
already emerged that may shape the character of war beyond the
capacity of the public sphere to control or even influence. One is
biotechnology. Biotechnology is one of the fastest growing
commercial sectors in the world. The number of biotechnology
companies in the United States alone has tripled since 1992. These
firms are research intensive, bringing new methods and products
onto the marketplace every day. Many of the benefits of this effort
are largely dual-use, increasing the possibility that knowledge,
skills, and equipment could be adopted to a biological agent
program. Rapid advances in biotechnology are being accelerated by
commensurate advances in information technologies known as
bioinformatics.5
As the global biotechnology industry
expands, nonproliferation efforts will have a difficult time
keeping pace with the opportunities available to field a
bioweapon.6 And weapons are not the
only potential contribution of this sector to new ways of war.
Biotechnology may reshape medical practices (on and off the
battlefield) and human performance, allowing for unprecedented
levels of individual achievement and endurance.
Rather than driving the biotechnology
revolution, the federal government is a fairly minor customer for
this multi-billion-dollar transnational industry. Project
Bioshield, a post-9/11 homeland security initiative to develop new
vaccines and other prophylaxis and therapeutics against
bioterrorist attacks offers one example. Funded for more than $6
billion over five years, one of the sharpest criticisms of the
program is that the dollar amount is too small to attract the
attention of major commercial research and development efforts. Nor
is the United States alone on the cutting edge in biotechnology
developments. In fact, many developing nations, such as Cuba and
India, have very sophisticated research and production
programs.
Private Sector, Public Wars
As in the past, technology will likely not
be the only factor that drives military competition. The evolving
character of the private sector could be another aspect of 21st
century global change that dramatically affects the nature of
conflict. The global free market has become a reality, and
commensurate with this economic condition is the emergence of an
unprecedented capacity for the private sector to expand, innovate,
and adapt to market needs--including an ability to provide what
once were considered military services offered solely by national
powers.
The trend for militaries to increasingly
outsource logistical and support functions is well established.
Added to that, however, is the emerging use of private sector
companies to provide traditional combat services, ranging from
training soldiers to patrolling streets.7
The increasing importance of privatized
military services was particularly apparent during post-conflict
operations in Iraq. Among the many tasks that the private sector
can perform, security assistance is the most essential.
Establishing security is a precondition for conducting
post-conflict operations. In particular, establishing effective
domestic security forces must be the highest priority. Private
sector firms have a demonstrated capacity to provide essential
services including administrative support, training, equipping, and
mentoring, as well as to augment indigenous police and military
units. In Iraq, these services were essential for both standing-up
the Iraqi security forces and augmenting the security provided by
U.S. military troops. Private sector assets can assist in providing
an important bridging capability during the period when American
military forces withdraw and domestic forces take over.8
A reliance on private sector assets in war
is likely irreversible. Unlike the public sector, the private
sector is bred for efficiency. Left to its own devices it will
always find the means to provide services faster, cheaper, and more
efficiently than governments. In addition, as governments lose
their monopolies over the technologies and means to generate combat
power, their capacity to retain military prowess as a public
activity will also be lost.
As long as free markets proliferate, the
reemergence of the private sphere of war is inevitable. Nations
that seek to hold back against this trend and limit the
participation of the private sector will be left behind because
they will lack the capacity to keep up with states that can harness
the power of the marketplace.
On the other hand, there is good reason
for liberal, developed states not to fear the reemergence of a
prominent role for the private sector in war. There is little
likelihood that the private sector's place in war will attend the
rise of a new "Middle Ages" with sovereigns losing their capacity
to manage violence. "Capitalism," as Fareed Zakaria cogently
argues, is not "something that exists in opposition to the
state....[A] legitimate, well-functioning state can create the
rules and laws that make capitalism work."9 Unlike medieval kings, modern nations
can use the instruments of good governance to bind the role of the
private sector in military competition.
The example of the United States
illustrates the means that modern, liberal states have to both
enable and harness the commercial capabilities of warfare that may
remain partially, or even entirely, in the private sphere. The
means available to moderate interaction between the public and the
private sphere include the following:
-
A well-established
judicial system;
-
An activist legislative
branch with its own investigatory instruments (such as the
Government Accountability Office);
-
The "60 Minutes"
factor--an independent press;
-
Public interest group
proliferation, which provides a wealth of independent oversight and
analysis; and
-
An enabled citizenry with
ready access to a vast amount of public information.
These assets offer unprecedented means to
balance the public and private spheres--not just to constrain
government conduct, but also to limit the excesses of the
commercial sector.10 In fact, these
capabilities might argue that in the long term, liberal, free
market democracies will prove far more effective at mastering the
capacity of the private sector in the 21st century than
authoritarian states with managed economies.
That said, however, the role of the
private sector in war raises innumerable legal, ethical, and
practical issues that must be dealt with.11 Marrying the private sector's capacity
to innovate and respond rapidly to changing demands with the
government's need to be responsible and accountable for the conduct
of operations is not an easy task. It will require militaries to
think differently about how best to integrate the private sector
into public wars. Nor can generals do this thinking in isolation.
Modern military operations are an inter-agency activity that
requires the support of many elements of executive power. The
judicial and legislative branches of government have important
roles to play as well. Indeed, many of the most important
instruments for constraining the role of the private sector in war
lay in their hands.
Checkbook War
The state of public financing is a third
factor that may govern the conduct of conflict far more
dramatically than how a general implements the principles of war.
In the decades ahead, developed nations could find that the nature
of mature economies and demographics significantly constrain the
amount of resources that they can dedicate to military campaigns.12
Government in the developed world has
expanded substantially during the past century. The United States
stands at the apex of this trend. One of the best measures of the
burden that the federal government, as a whole, imposes on the
national economy through its spending policies is the percentage of
gross domestic product (GDP) taken up by outlays. During America's
first 140 years, the federal government rarely consumed more than 1
or 2 percent of GDP. In accordance with the U.S. Constitution,
Washington focused on defense and certain public goods while
leaving most other functions to the states or the people
themselves. That changed in the 20th century. Between 1962 and
2000, defense spending plummeted from 9.3 percent of GDP to 3.0
percent. Nearly all of funding shifted from defense spending went
into mandatory spending (mostly entitlement programs), which jumped
from 6.1 percent of GDP to 12.1 percent during that same
period.
This importance of this evolution cannot
be understated. For most of the nation's history, the federal
government's chief budgetary function was funding defense. The
two-thirds decline in defense spending since 1962 has substantially
altered the make-up and structure of the U.S. national defense.
Today, spending on defense and homeland
security in the United States stands at about 4.0 percent of GDP,
the highest level of investment since the end of the Cold War.
However, this represents, on average, less than half what the
nation spent before the fall of the Berlin Wall. And, unlike the
Cold War period, post-Cold War defense spending is faced with
unprecedented competition for federal dollars with mandatory
government spending on entitlement programs.
Mandatory outlays for programs such as
Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are consuming, and will
continue to consume, ever-larger percentages of federal spending
and total GDP. As a result, they will apply increasing pressure to
crowd out the resources available to the government's traditional
primary mission--providing security to the nation. And that will
likely change how future wars are fought.
Nor is the United States unique in facing
this dilemma. European nations, which already spend on average less
than 2 percent of their GDP on defense, and spend much more of
their national budgets on social services and entitlements, face
similar predicaments. As potential economic and military
powerhouses like China and India move from the ranks of the
developing to the developed they will also confront the same kinds
of challenges. In fact, India and China may encounter even more
pressure to rein in defense spending since they will have much
larger populations demanding higher levels of social services.
Conflict and the Demographic Dilemma
Demographic changes could well exacerbate
the strain on developed economies to undertake military
competition. As historian John Chambers summarized in his history
of conscription in the United States, militaries are shaped as much
by "trends in society as by the nature of war itself."13 As nations develop, their population
growth slows and the average age of the population increases, as
does the cost of manpower. The result is an increasingly shrinking
population available to run with the dogs of war.
In the future, the changes caused by the
dynamics of demographics will accelerate, altering the character of
modern military forces and their attributes as an instrument of
battle. Although the rate of population increases in developed
countries will slow, the total size of the population will continue
to grow--and less of the national polity will be suitable for
military service. The cost of military manpower will also increase
as armed forces find themselves competing with the private sector
for talented young people. The total size of militaries in relation
to the nation as a whole will likely continue to decrease in the
years to come. At the same time, as populations age, militaries
will likely diversify those they seek to bring into the ranks to
compensate for the shrinking pool of traditional military-age
males. Thus, national forces might include more women, individuals
with disabilities, non-citizens, and older persons--as well as a
much higher percentage of reserve component personnel. Some
analysts also argue that as the military comes to reflect an
ever-smaller portion of the nation, a gap will develop that could
threaten the nature of civil-military relations.14
At the same time, the use of conscription
as a form of military service could well decline. With a trend
toward fielding forces armed with more technology and more
sophisticated skills, short-service conscription will be seen
increasingly as inadequate, not allowing sufficient time to train
forces and requiring excessive costs to frequently retrain new
recruits. Likewise, with militaries becoming smaller in developed
nations, conscription will be seen increasingly as socially
divisive because it will be difficult to equitably draw on the
available eligible pool of recruits. In all likelihood, military
drafts will be viewed as inefficient and ineffective means for
mobilizing manpower in developed, liberal democracies.
Finally, the impact of economic and
demographic trends on the developed world could exacerbate the gap
between how nations and non-state actors wage war in the 21st
century. The span between the military capabilities of undeveloped,
failing (and failed) states, developing nations, and the developed
world will only grow in the decades ahead. As a result, the 21st
century could well see a witch's brew of countries and non-state
actors, such as transnational terrorist groups, fighting with very
different means, employed in a polyglot of ways, toward a dizzying
array of divergent ends. Thus, economic, cultural, and social
trends could produce wars with an unprecedented level of
asymmetrical engagements15--a further
burden on the poor principles of war in adjusting to the challenges
of the 21st century.
The Principles and the Future of War
The future "ain't" what it used to be.
Most futurist projections envision tomorrow as an extension of
current trends. The past, however, is not always prologue. The
character of war in the 21st century could be significantly
divergent from the inevitable march toward modern conflict that
stretches from the Middle Ages to the present. War in the 21st
century will be neither a private-or a public matter, but a civil
activity that spans both worlds, with each realm having a
substantial amount of autonomy and influence. Indeed, the main
argument presented here is that the private sphere of warfare is on
the ascendancy, destroying the nation-state's monopoly on the
management of violence. As a result, consideration of military
matters cannot be confined to the traditional place of battle.
Frameworks--such as the principles of war--will be increasingly
seen as anachronistic and counterproductive. Only military thinkers
that understand how factors beyond the battle shape the conduct of
conflict will earn the moniker of "genius for war."
James Jay
Carafano, Ph.D., is Senior Research Fellow for National
Security and Homeland Security in the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom
Davis Institute for International Studies at The Heritage
Foundation. These remarks were delivered on April 13,
2005, at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab.