Military Operations

Assessing the British House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee’s report entitled “Libya: Examination of Intervention and Collapse and the UK’s Future Policy Options.”

During the second half of August, the Nigerian military announced numerous successes in the fight against Boko Haram, the militant, jihadist movement that seeks to overthrow the Nigerian state. On August 30, the commander of the fight against Boko Haram, Lucky Irabor, announced that the military will root the group out from its remaining locations within weeks. Previously, Colonel Sani Kukasheka Usman, an army spokesman, said that Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau had been “fatally injured” during an air raid. The same day, the chief of air staff, Air Vice-Marshal Sadiq Abubakar, said that the air force killed over three-hundred Boko Haram militants during night airstrikes on August 19. What should be made of these announcements? Nigerian military spokesmen have long had a credibility problem, with exaggerated claims of success. They have claimed to have killed Abubakar Shekau on numerous occasions. During the Buhari presidency, military spokesmen appear to have become more restrained. The president himself has said that Shekau was wounded. Nevertheless, no official spokesman has provided the basis for the claim that Shekau has been wounded, fatally or otherwise. A  Daily Trust columnist also notes that the word “fatally” can have different meanings. In Europe and the United States, “fatally wounded” means that the victim will die. To a Nigerian military spokesman, the word can mean ‘serious.’ As for the air vice-marshal’s claim that the air force killed over three-hundred, how does he know? Has there been a body count? Further, how does he know that those killed were all Boko Haram, rather than villagers and others in the wrong place at the wrong time? In asymmetric warfare, it is often hard to tell who the enemy is, as Americans know from painful experience in theatres ranging from Vietnam to Afghanistan. This has often led to unintended civilian casualties. Perhaps the most worrying aspect of the air vice marshal’s announcement is that apparently  Boko Haram can still mass three-hundred fighters after two years of Nigerian military offensives.

When asked to recommend readings for international relations and foreign policy syllabi, I regularly send people to my summaries of important policy-relevant findings from academic journals. But for this fall, I wanted to recommend an immersive teaching tool that goes beyond reading lists and puts students in the policymaker hot seat, where they work in teams to make judgments and decisions based upon limited information and timelines. Our new Model Diplomacy initiative features case-based simulations that offer free course guides, multimedia content, research materials, and exercises for high school teachers and undergraduate professors to use in the classroom. It includes thirteen timely and relevant cases, from a humanitarian intervention in South Sudan to an escalating cyber clash with China. As of this summer, 547 institutions are participating in Model Diplomacy, representing some 68 countries. One case that I have developed and updated is a National Security Council (NSC) meeting simulation that debates the merits of authorizing a drone strike in Pakistan against Ayman al-Zawahiri. Students are told: Last week, the CIA suddenly came upon highly credible evidence of Zawahiri’s location—inside a large compound in a densely populated city in the Federally Adminstrated Tribal Areas. The compound also houses an estimated three dozen women and children. A trusted source from within Pakistan, who has provided credible information in the past, told his CIA liaison that Zawahiri will be meeting several high-level al-Qaeda operatives at his compound at 2:00 a.m. tomorrow. Among those believed to be attending is an American who is also a senior al-Qaeda operative. The president must decide quickly whether to authorize action to kill or capture Zawahiri. For a fairly dramatic video of some remarkable teenagers debating a drone strike or capture operation against Zawahiri, see the Model Diplomacy homepage. To learn more, and to see what other tools CFR offers for teachers, professors, and students, visit CFR Campus. Welcome back to school.

Today, the Defense Science Board (DSB) released a long-awaited study, simply titled Autonomy. Since the late 1950s, the DSB has consistently been at the forefront of investigating and providing policy guidance for cutting-edge scientific, technological, and manufacturing issues. Many of these reports are available in full online and are worth reading. The Autonomy study task force, led by Dr. Ruth David and Maj. Gen. Paul Nielsen (ret.), was directed in 2014 “to identify the science, engineering, and policy problems that must be addressed to facilitate greater operational use of autonomy across all warfighting domains.” The study begins with a practical overview of what autonomous means, and how it has enhanced operations in the private sector and throughout the military. According to the authors: “To be autonomous, a system must have the capability to independently compose and select among different courses of action to accomplish goals based on its knowledge and understanding of the world, itself, and the situation.” They also present four categories for characterizing the technology and engineering required for autonomous systems: Sense (sensors), Think/Decide (artificial intelligence computation power), Act (actuators and mobility), and Team (human-machine collaboration). The latter category of human interactions with autonomous systems is a reoccurring theme throughout the study. The authors emphasize that it will be more important to continuously educate and train human users than to develop the software and hardware for autonomous systems. The proliferation of such systems is already prevalent in the private sector, where there are few intelligent adversaries looking to corrupt or defeat them. The more complex challenge will be in assuring that policymakers and military operators can trust that more autonomous weapons platforms and networks “perform effectively in their intended use and that such use will not result in high-regret, unintended consequences,” as the authors indicate. They propose extensive use of early red teaming and modeling and simulations to identify and overcome inevitable vulnerabilities. While technologists and futurists often propose far greater adaptation of autonomous systems in U.S. defense planning, the study warns of several adversarial uses of autonomy (many of which red teamers warned of regarding network-centric-warfare fifteen years ago): “The potential exploitations the U.S. could face include low observability throughout the entire spectrum from sound to visual light, the ability to swarm with large numbers of low-cost vehicles to overwhelm sensors and exhaust the supply of effectors, and maintaining both endurance and persistence through autonomous or remotely piloted vehicles…. The U.S. will face a wide spectrum of threats with varying kinds of autonomous capabilities across every physical domain—land, sea, undersea, air, and space—and in the virtual domain of cyberspace as well.” The study also identifies ten projects that could be started immediately to investigate near-term benefits of autonomy. The most notable of these is “Project #6: Automated cyber-response,” which is in response to the move from attempting (and failing) to secure computer networks based upon past adversarial attacks, to developing defensible networks that can sense, characterize, and thwart attacks in real time. U.S. Cyber Command is tasked with leading this project for $50 million over the next two to three years, which includes the ambitious goal of “Develop a global clandestine infrastructure that will enable the deployment of the defensive option to thwart an attack.” The study addresses, but does not make specific recommendations for the well-publicized and controversial issue of fully autonomous lethal systems used for offensive operations. However, it does call for “autonomous ISR analysis, interpretation, option generation, and resource allocation” to reduce the human requirements and time needed (currently twenty-four hours) to process and distribute the air tasking order for combat units to strike. Like an increasing number of other military missions, this is another example where machines can make warfare easier, faster, and safer for U.S. servicemembers. Whether, and how often, those wars occur remain up to elected civilian leaders. Read the Defense Science Board Autonomy study for a smart—and policy-relevant—overview on where the Pentagon is planning to head regarding autonomous systems.

Today I spoke with Kori Schake, Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. We spoke about her new book co-edited with Jim Mattis, Warriors and Citizens: American Views of our Military (Hoover 2016) and what their research reveals about how the public and elites currently view the military—and what that means for national security policy. Kori also offered some candid advice for young national security scholars and an uplifting story featuring the great Harvard Professor Ernie May from early in her career. Follow her work on Twitter @KoriSchake, and listen to my conversation with one of the smartest and most well-respected experts in national security and military affairs:

Four months after President Obama pledged to the nation in September 2014 “we will degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL,” reporters challenged Pentagon spokesperson Rear Adm. John Kirby about his assertion that “We know that we’ve killed hundreds of their forces.” One reporter asked directly, “can you be more specific on that number?” Kirby replied tersely: “I cannot give you a more specific number of how many ISIL fighters…[W]e don’t have the ability to count every nose that we shwack [sic]….And we’re not getting into an issue of body counts. And that’s why I don’t have that number handy. I wouldn’t have asked my staff to give me that number before I came out here. It’s simply not a relevant figure.” Sixteen days later, a U.S. government official offered just such a number: 6,000. Body counts have a long and infamous history in modern U.S. wars, from Vietnam, to Afghanistan, to Iraq, and now in the campaign against the self-proclaimed Islamic State. In each of these conflicts, the U.S. government released estimates of enemy fighters killed, all while either doubting the voracity of those numbers or admitting they were largely irrelevant to achieving the longer-term strategic objective. As Gen. Westmoreland said after the Vietnam War: “Statistics were, admittedly, an imperfect gauge of progress, yet in the absence of conventional front lines, how else to measure it?” I have a piece in Foreign Policy today that reviews and questions the Pentagon’s estimates of Islamic State fighters killed and lists the data points it has released: March 3, 2015: 8,500 June 1, 2015: 13,000 July 29, 2015: 15,000 October 12, 2015: 20,000 November 30, 2015: 23,000 January 6, 2016: 25,500 April 12, 2016: 25,000/26,000 August 10, 2016: 45,000 For more on why this recent 80 percent increase is improbable, as well as an official response from the U.S. Central Command, read the full article.

Gabriella Meltzer is a research associate in the Global Health program at the Council on Foreign Relations. Aaron Picozzi is the research associate for the military fellows at the Council on Foreign Relations, a Coast Guard veteran, and currently serves in the Army National Guard. Two years ago, Americans braced for the imminent arrival of Ebola. The virus was spreading rapidly in West Africa, and ended up infecting 29,000 people and killing 11,000 more in the region. Knowing that it could not be contained by underdeveloped and overwhelmed health systems in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone, the U.S. military took swift action to mitigate its impact in West Africa and prevent the disease from crossing the Atlantic. Ultimately, only four cases occurred in the United States, resulting in just one fatality. Today we face a new, more complicated public health menace—Zika, a mosquito-borne disease whose outbreak across Latin America has resulted in women giving birth to children with microcephaly and other debilitating neurological disorders. Strategies that focused on behavioral changes were effective in containing Ebola as transmission only occurs through contact with infected people or objects, but they cannot contain Zika, as individual mosquitos’ movement and feeding patterns cannot be closely monitored or controlled. Ebola infections are also much easier to spot—characteristic symptoms present themselves two to twenty-one days post-infection and there are at least seven WHO-approved, reliable diagnostic tests. With Zika, an estimated 80 percent of those infected remain asymptomatic, and rapid, definitive, and affordable diagnostics still remain in development. Airport screening tactics used to protect Americans from Ebola, which screened 94 percent of all travelers coming from areas of high infection, cannot be applied to Zika. West African migrants are unable to travel the 4,000 miles across the Atlantic to reach U.S. shores—but Caribbean and Latin American migrants can, and regularly do. As economic conditions in Latin American countries like Venezuela and Brazil worsen, the threat of Zika provides another push for those already looking to make a new life in the United States. The U.S. Coast Guard indicts thousands of these migrants annually, from Southern California to as far east as the Atlantic coast of Florida. There is no need to pass through an airport—any shoreline is a landing point, making universal screening nearly impossible. The confluence of these factors highlights the necessity for a solution at Zika’s source rather than America’s entry points. However, WHO-member nations have displayed lackluster financial commitment to the fight against Zika. Even if the necessary funds were raised, their dispersal to local public health agencies is a long, arduous process, and vaccine development and approval can take upwards of eighteen months. Instead, there is another actor with resources at its disposal and capable of providing immediate results in this time of urgency—the U.S. military. Rapidly mobilizing the military to conduct advisory missions, strengthening and developing response systems, in areas of high infection would produce a lasting framework tailored not just towards Zika, but a myriad of potential problems. Brazil has turned to its military for domestic response, not because of an inherent skill in mosquito eradication, but because this rapidly deployable, incredibly flexible workforce could be deputized to combat specific problems. The U.S. military has the same ability. Whether responding to the Japanese earthquake of 2011 or the 2014 Ebola crisis, the U.S. military is very effective in aiding local governments while leaving behind a framework to address future disasters. Of course, any U.S. military presence should be tailored to meet local needs, but by focusing on training foreign militaries and other agencies in disaster management, the United States would be making a long term investment in regional stability, as well as U.S. national security. This is evidenced by the Obama administration’s recently introduced Global Health Security Agenda, which highlights the importance of cooperative prevention, detection, and response to infectious disease agents. To realize this agenda, vulnerable nations like Brazil and Venezuela need support to develop the necessary capacities and framework to ensure global stability. In an age of globalization and unpredictability, prevention is preferable to reaction. With trained forces located throughout the western hemisphere, the United States will effectively create a sphere of management and mitigation in its backyard. Be it a health emergency like Zika or Ebola, or a natural disaster such as an earthquake or tsunami, the ability to mobilize a trainable force to respond quickly is crucial. Many of the countries in the heart of the Zika epidemic have weak response systems, governments, and economies. Training and strengthening of response efforts in these countries will help to reassure citizens of stability in times of crisis. This is a long term byproduct of training operations, one that reduces the need for reactive action in the future. With U.S.-led multinational training and partnership, the current hollow framework in place for disaster response and prevention can be strengthened while simultaneously taking steps to counter Zika. Regional problems are quickly becoming international in the age of globalization, and it is often only a matter of time before issues spurred elsewhere arrive on American shores. By training and empowering foreign nations, the United States will feel the beneficial, long-term effects in not only regional, but global stability.

Late last month, I was honored to be a speaker at the Aspen Ideas Festival about my book Red Team: How to Succeed By Thinking Like the Enemy. The Festival, which the Aspen Institute began in 2005, invites a wide array of thinkers and doers from around the world to present their research or performances in an unusually scenic environment, and in front of super smart and challenging attendees. At this year’s festival, the big-name speakers included Vice President Joe Biden, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Secretary of State John Kerry, and IMF chief Christine Lagarde. I learned a great deal from the sessions I attended on food insecurity, criminal justice reform, and the expanding universe—I even got to observe evidence of this at night through high-powered telescopes. I’m sharing a recording of my presentation at Aspen primarily because it was run by the brilliant veteran journalist James Fallows, who graciously provided a blurb for my book ten months ago. He is the gold standard for making a book talk compelling and relevant for the audience. The question-and-answer session with the audience was also spirited and enlightening, at least for me. Overall, a highlight of my career.

Jared Wright is an intern in the Center for Preventive Action at the Council on Foreign Relations. President Barack Obama’s recent announcement that 8,400 U.S. troops will remain in Afghanistan at the end of his administration, nearly 3,000 more troops than his previous timeline, reflects the tenuous stability that Afghanistan has achieved after nearly fifteen years of U.S. involvement. A resurgent Taliban and the appearance of self-proclaimed Islamic State forces have tested the ability of the increasingly fragile central government to provide security and political stability and demonstrated the limits of U.S. training and support. Meanwhile, economic and political frustrations across all levels of Afghan society have gone largely unaddressed by the National Unity Government (NUG). The security situation in Afghanistan could worsen, which would threaten U.S. interests in the region. A new Contingency Planning Memorandum released by the Center for Preventive Action, “Strategic Reversal in Afghanistan,” assesses the growing risks of strategic reversals in Afghanistan. Author Seth G. Jones, Director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at RAND, recommends steps the United States can take to mitigate or prevent such risks. The report highlights the shortcomings of the NUG and the challenges that the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police—which both face rising attrition rates, low morale, and a climbing death toll—are forced to confront in providing for Afghanistan’s security. Jones identifies two principle contingencies to watch over the next twelve to eighteen months: the collapse of the NUG—which is plagued by widespread corruption, deteriorating economic conditions, and competition among Afghan elites—and major gains in urban areas by the Taliban, who now control more territory than at any other point since December 2001. Both outcomes are not mutually exclusive, as one contingency would ultimately magnify the potential for the other. U.S. interests would be harmed if either contingency happens. U.S. objectives in Afghanistan are clear: to target al-Qaeda and other extremist elements in order to prevent future attacks against the United States, and to enable Afghan forces to provide security for the country. A government collapse or the seizure of one or more major cities by the Taliban would severely diminish the likelihood of achieving either objective, while simultaneously rolling back gains made over the last decade. These contingencies could also lead to an increase in extremist groups operating in Afghanistan; introduce regional instability involving India, Pakistan, Iran, and Russia; and possibly signal to other countries that the United States is not a reliable ally, further complicating regional power dynamics. To prevent these contingencies from occurring, Jones recommends the United States leverage its relationship with Afghanistan, focusing on building greater political consensus, encouraging regional powers to support Kabul, pursuing reconciliation with the Taliban, and strengthening Afghan security forces so that they can manage internal security challenges with limited outside involvement. To achieve those aims, the U.S. should:                           Focus diplomatic efforts on resolving acute political challenges, prioritizing electoral reforms and building consensus between the Afghan government and political elites. Address economic grievances that could undermine the political legitimacy of the government. Sustain the current number and type of U.S. military forces through the end of the Obama administration. Decrease constraints on U.S. forces in Afghanistan and grant the military authority to strike the Taliban and Haqqani network. Sustain U.S. support for the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces.   For a more in-depth analysis on how the situation in Afghanistan might result in a strategic reversal and what the United States can do to prevent that from happening or mitigate the consequences, read “Strategic Reversal in Afghanistan.”

Months after promising to release the number of civilians that have been killed in U.S. lethal counterterrorism operations outside of "areas of active hostilities," the Obama Administration today released its count in a report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. According to the numbers provided, there were 473 "strikes" [presumably this includes both manned and unmanned aircraft conducted by both the CIA and the U.S. military] which killed between 2,372 and 2,581 combatants, and between 64 and 116 civilians. According to the numbers that we have provided since our Reforming U.S. Drone Strike Policies report in January 2013, the numbers of strikes in non-battlefield settings and fatalities of both combatants and civilians is much higher. As of today, there have been approximately 578 strikes—50 under George W. Bush, 528 under Obama, which have cumulatively killed an estimated 4,189 militants and 474 civilians. This information is fully presented in the chart below with the sources used.   Sources: New America Foundation (NAF); Long War Journal (LWJ); The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) ** Based on averages within the ranges provided by the organizations monitoring each country as of July 1, 2016.  

Harry Oppenheimer is a research associate for national security at the Council on Foreign Relations. The U.S. military mission in Afghanistan has been subject to restrictive rules of engagement that prohibited targeting the Taliban directly unless they posed a threat to U.S. personnel, or an extreme threat to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF). Reportedly, this has changed. The recent news was the first major policy change for the Afghan War since General John Nicholson took over command exactly one hundred days before the announcement on March 2, 2016. Combined with today’s story that North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) bases will remain open in Afghanistan into 2017, Nicholson has latitude that would be the envy of his predecessors. Flexibility over war plans is something that General John F. Campbell, Nicholson’s predecessor, called for publically in Senate hearings but could never achieve. After leaving Afghanistan, reports leaked that Campbell wanted to strike the Taliban directly and created enemies within the Department of Defense (DoD) in the process. Last week’s news makes such direct action possible. But there is a larger story as well—the White House appears to be responding to the concerns of the commander on the ground. When the then–lieutenant general Nicholson testified at his confirmation hearings in January he reiterated the importance of coalition close air support (CAS) and logistical and intelligence enablers for the ANDSF. His written testimony outlined his understanding entering the position: “Although their capabilities continue to grow as DoD fields additional planned aviation and intelligence, security, and reconnaissance (ISR) enablers to the ANDSF, I’ve been informed that there are still many requests for coalition enablers.” However, he added, “in the near term, as their CAS capability grows with the fielding of the A29 and additional rotary wing assets, I expect those requests to diminish. Over the long term, the most important capability we can provide them are the systems and procedures we put in place to ensure their sustainability.” This preliminary view came with a promise that in the first three months in command he would undertake a comprehensive review of the situation in Afghanistan and report back to senior leaders. This assessment would come, “after I have had the opportunity to get first hand insight on the situation in Afghanistan.” Regrettably, the Taliban have been encouraged by a highly successful 2015 that saw them control more territory than they ever have since the 2001 U.S. invasion. Recently, they have had numerous victories in southern Afghanistan. The day before the announcement of the expanded U.S. role, the special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction warned that Taliban gains jeopardized the efforts of the United States in the past decade. Now President Barack Obama has eased the restrictions on airstrikes in direct support of ANDSF, something that he has been loathed to do despite numerous suggestions from former military leaders and national security experts. ABC News reports that Nicholson, “will now be allowed to determine when American forces should advise and assist conventional Afghan Army units, something that until now had only been allowed for American special operations forces working with Afghan special operations forces.” News that NATO bases will remain open despite planned troop reductions will give Nicholson further flexibility to gauge force size and placement. While we cannot see Nicholson’s report to the president, many have speculated as to its contents. It is unlikely a coincidence that these policy changes come exactly one hundred days into his command. Here the proof may be in the pudding—Nicholson has seen the state of the Afghan military and the reduction of direct support he expected in March is clearly unrealistic. That is the only assessment one can imagine would push the administration to relax restrictions on a war it wanted over long ago. Hopefully this is a sign of good things to come—the best military advice, in this case from the vastly experienced Nicholson on the ground, translating directly into policy changes authorized by the White House. Maybe Nicholson learned from his predecessor and went about advocating for new authority with greater political acumen. The upside is that is the influence he could have over the direction of the Afghan War and the trust he has been given by civilian leadership.

A revelation today about Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server during her time as Secretary of State may indicate her preference using military force over diplomatic considerations. It was known since January that the content of twenty-two emails that went through the private server were classified at the “top secret/SAP [special access programs]” level, referring to highly classified intelligence gathering or covert programs run by the Pentagon and CIA. At the time, Clinton told NPR, "the best we can determine" is that the emails in question consisted solely of a news article about drone strikes in Pakistan. As Clinton stated: "How a New York Times public article that goes around the world could be in any way viewed as classified, or the fact that it would be sent to other people off of the New York Times site, I think, is one of the difficulties that people have in understanding what this is about.” Today, Adam Entous and Devlin Barrett reported that the e-mails were not merely forwarded news articles, but consisted of informal discussions between Clinton’s senior aides about whether to oppose upcoming CIA drone strikes in Pakistan. According to Entous and Barrett when a potential strike was imminent—or if it occurred during the holidays when staffers were away from government computers—the covert operation was then debated openly, albeit vaguely without mentioning the CIA, drones, or the militant targets specifically. The State Department was given a voice in the intensity and timing of CIA drone strikes in Pakistan, after then-Ambassador Cameron Munter reportedly opposed certain covert operations that occurred during especially sensitive points in the U.S.-Pakistani bilateral relationship, or when domestic opposition to the strikes were at their highest. As he later described this process: “I have a yellow card,” Munter recalled, describing the new policy. “I can say ‘no.’ That ‘no’ goes back to the CIA director. Then he has to go to Hillary. If Hillary says ‘no,’ he can still do it, but he has to explain the next day in writing why.” It was after Munter raised objections to drone strikes that Sec. Clinton and her aides would debate the merits of them, including through emails that were forwarded to Clinton’s private account. Entous and Barrett’s reporting includes this critical passage: “With the compromise, State Department-CIA tensions began to subside. Only once or twice during Mrs. Clinton’s tenure at State did U.S. diplomats object to a planned CIA strike, according to congressional and law-enforcement officials familiar with the emails.” During Clinton’s tenure between January 2009 and February 2013, the CIA conducted 294 drone strikes that killed 2,192 people, 226 of whom were civilians. (For the data see here, which is based on averages within the ranges provided by the New America Foundation, Long Wars Journal, and The Bureau of Investigative Journalism.) In other words, of the 294 CIA drone strikes in Pakistan, Clinton’s State Department objected to fewer than one-percent of them. If elected to the White House, would she similarly prioritize CIA counterterrorism operations over the concerns of senior U.S. diplomats? The evidence from her time as Secretary of State suggests that the answer is overwhelmingly “yes.”