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Preemptive Defense
By fall, the Bush National Security Council will publish a new defense doctrine that will
break from the 50-year old policy of deterrence and containment. Instead, the new strategic doctrine will declare
that the United States will add two new options - "preemption" and "defensive intervention."
The new doctrine will affect both domestic and foreign policy and all budgets and advanced planning. It is occasioned
by a new high tech and interconnected world. That world, in the technical language of military planners, is a place
where America, as well as others, faces the continuous threat of asymmetrical attacks from non-state actors.
The old policy was built around the concept that an adversary, in the form of a recognizable nation, would not
attack the United States or its allies for fear that such an attack would provoke a certain, one might say dead
certain, overwhelming retaliatory strike. Not today. The nature of the enemy has changed. The nature of the threat
has changed. Therefore, the nature of the response must change.
Radical Islamists are well-equipped to furnish the foot soldiers of war in many countries but not in battalions
and companies. The terrorist training camps teach the ability of ones and twos to gather as fours and fives, fours
and fives to gather as twenties, twenties to gather in as much as a hundred but only for a day or so. Then, the
work done, they disperse back into the general population. They need sanctuary. Who will give them safe harbor
and a source of re-supply?
The radical oil states have the money to create the weapons - conventional, chemical, biological or even nuclear
- and are there to fund, nurture and supply the terrorists. Just so long as they don't appear to be living nearby.
In that way, neither partner can be the target of a retaliatory attack because no one that has been struck knows
exactly where the attack originated.
At the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, scientists are investigating just how to destroy hidden bunkers that are
hardened and deeply buried and contain chemical, biological and radioactive materials. They are working on advanced
conventional weapons that can penetrate these targets. Some of the bunkers are so hard, however, that they could
only be destroyed by tactical nuclear warheads.
The new doctrine of defensive intervention will say that the United States reserves the right and the option to
strike at hostile sovereign nations or non-sovereign groups that appear determined to employ weapons of mass destruction.
We will not wait to "retaliate." We will not wait for "absolute proof." We will maintain the
right and develop the ability to launch "no warning" raids and air strikes using our Joint Stealth Task
Force to destroy an adversary's weapons stockpile and arsenal before it is dispersed to terrorist delivery agents.
The F-11 has no traceable launch site.
Why is this future announcement important today? Because such a doctrine of preemption compels the intelligence
community to implement a new culture overnight. An erroneous preemptive action could cause an escalating crisis,
forcing both sides to act sooner rather than later. Such an aggressive doctrine would require both far better and
far different intelligence that the government currently produces, says The Washington Post.
September 11th was not the result of poor bureaucratic organization, inattentive supervisors or poor communication
between agencies. Although it will keep the politicians busy until fall, the reorganization plan is mostly a distraction.
Giving the new secretary $37 billion and 170,000 employees only establishes the need for Congressional oversight,
not any real authority of the secretary nor effective governance.
Columnist Michael Ledeen, writing on the proposed new cabinet department of domestic defense, put the issue this
way. "The problem with our intelligence services is not structure, its culture and its politics." For
25 years, the agencies have been hammered by Congress and the media. The policy people saw that nothing was going
to be done so they shied away from bringing forward information that demanded strong action. Over time, the intelligence
community grew a set of instincts that prevented them from getting, analyzing and interpreting hard intelligence
on terrorism. They generate data by the ton but perform analysis by the ounce.
.Our safety will come from an act of political will, not a bureaucratic re-shuffle. A current poll by the Palestinian
Jerusalem Media and Communications Center (JMCC) confirms that the radicalized views held by the Palestinians continue
to worsen. Some 79 percent of Palestinians support the uprising (20 months since the Clinton peace proposal) and
fifty-one percent say that the end result they seek is to eliminate Israel as a nation. Hamas, which opposes Israel's
existence, is approved by 59 percent.
The question for George W. Bush is bravery and willpower. Do we have the will to wage war against terrorists or
not? Many times, the Euro-call for cooler heads comes from those with cold feet. Ledeen concludes his argument
this way: "we need war leaders, not compulsive negotiators or management consultants. We must attack soon,
before the next assault." The reason to energetically prosecute the war now is to avoid what will be required
later.
"The war against terror is not simply reactive," says columnist Victor Davis Hanson, "nor is it
solely military in nature, but in fact is a part of a larger effort to alter the very moral landscape - social,
economic and political - that allows terrorists to flourish. … We shall never have peace in this conflict; we shall
never attain real justice for those who have aided and abetted our enemies, until we can assure that all governments
pledge to their peoples the creation of open and humane societies."
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