Violence as a Peacekeeper

Discussion of the Desert Fox campaign against Iraq provides a good example of an inability to see the forest for the trees. There was much talk about the precision of the U.S. “smart” weapons as well as the overall effectiveness of the attacks. Also, much was said about the impact of the operation on the stability of Saddam Hussein’s regime. However, the most important aspect of the U.S. attack was hardly mentioned.

Operation Desert Fox provides another indication that the United States is abandoning strategic deterrence as the cornerstone of its national security doctrine. The strategy that kept the peace between the superpowers ever since WWII is gradually being replaced with the doctrine of strategic preemption, designed to cope with a world where extremist regimes possess weapons of mass destruction. Under the new concept, the emphasis is on employing violent means to eliminate the threat these weapons pose.

This transformation qualifies as a strategic revolution of the first order. Yet it has been all but ignored even though its roots date back to the 1991 Gulf War. During that conflict Saddam Hussein, in effect, proved undeterrable. He attacked Israeli population centers with Scud missiles despite stern warnings from the U.S. and despite warnings from Israel of a “horrible and terrible” retribution, which many thought implied a resort to nuclear weapons.

Moreover, Saddam proceeded to demolish most of the Kuwaiti oil wells despite President Bush’s warning that the U.S. would not tolerate the destruction of Kuwait’s oil fields and installations.

A widely shared intelligence assessment at the time held that no amount of punishment would deter Saddam from resorting to his chemical and biological arms if he thought his downfall was imminent. Indeed, Saddam’s uninterrupted ability to hold the regional population centers hostage to chemical and biological missile attacks had a profound impact on the U.S. conduct of the war.

Paradoxically, after the war, speculation emerged in the West that Iraq’s failure to use these weapons in the face of a humiliating military defeat was due to successful U.S. strategic deterrence.

But many in the U.S. defense establishment were less than convincing on this point. In 1993, then-Secretary of Defense Les Aspin announced the “most sweeping” review of U.S. nuclear strategy in 45 years. The “most important” problem to be addressed was the ominous issue of the “undeterrables.”

Indeed, the same theme ran through President Clinton’s recent statements. In explaining the reasons for Operation Desert Fox, Clinton said, “The international community had little doubt then, and I have no doubt today, that, left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will use these terrible [nuclear, chemical and biological] weapons again.”

Accordingly, Clinton committed the U.S. to act as soon as Iraq began to reassemble its mass destruction weapons. The president said the United States “must be prepared to use force again if Saddam takes threatening actions such as trying to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction or other delivery systems.” He said this was the “surest way” to “prevent another Gulf War.”

But it would be a mistake to assume Saddam is the sole reason for America’s new posture. Since the Gulf War, the Pentagon has been preparing for a world where effective strategic deterrence is a thing of the past. On Dec. 7, 1993, Aspin announced that the U.S. would add a military dimension to its fight against the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Terming the new policy the Defense Counter-Proliferation Initiative, Aspin said that America was now developing improved and specialized military capabilities, doctrine training and contingency plans to pursue counter-proliferation policies.

In 1997, the Department of Defense reported it had made “substantial progress” toward “fully integrating the counter-proliferation mission into its military planning, acquisition, intelligence and international cooperation activities.” The chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for instance, has issued a counter-proliferation charter, which provided “overarching strategic-level policy and guidance on employment of U.S. forces to counter the proliferation of [nuclear, biological and chemical] weapons.”

Little wonder that Moscow is reacting with alarm. The Russians are worried that attacks on weapons storage and production centers near their southern borders, especially in Iran, could expose their territory to contamination hazard.

Gen. Pierre Gallois, the French strategist who in the 1950s advocated development of the force de frappe, had argued that the spread of the bomb would make nations afraid of each other and lead to a safer world. It appears he was sorely mistaken.