Military Operations

Yesterday, the White House released the readout of a call between President Donald Trump and the King of Saudi Arabia, Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud. The statement featured this remarkable statement: “The President requested and the King agreed to support safe zones in Syria and Yemen, as well as supporting other ideas to help the many refugees who are displaced by the ongoing conflicts.” During the presidential campaign, Trump, as well as Mike Pence, repeatedly endorsed the creation of safe zones in Syria, without adding any clarification. Trump proclaimed that unnamed Middle East countries would pay for the “big, beautiful safe zone” in Syria, while Pence during the vice presidential debate proclaimed they would “create a route for safe passage” and “protect people in those areas, including with the no-fly zone.” Five days later, when asked about his running mate’s position Trump declared flatly: “He and I haven’t spoken, and I disagree.” Political campaigns are consequence-free environments, but statements made while serving as chief of state should reflect actual government policy. If President Trump is now serious about authorizing the U.S. armed forces to implement safe zones (as indicated by his request to the Saudi monarch), he and his senior aides must clarify exactly what he means by this new, expansive, and poorly conceived military mission. I have written about no-fly zones and safe zones for more than fifteen years. But rather than re-package previous analysis, here are fifteen questions that Congress, journalists, and citizens should expect the Trump administration to answer:                                                                   What is the ultimate political objective of the safe zones? For example, will they provide temporary humanitarian refuge for internally displaced persons, or leverage for a brokered peace agreement? What is the domestic legal basis for them? As the sovereign government of Syria will presumably oppose them, what is the international legal basis? Where exactly within Syria or Yemen will they be located, and why were those locations chosen? Will non-combatants as well as rebel groups residing within the safe zones be protected? If not, how will residents be vetted, and who will do the vetting? Will those residing within safe zones be protected from all forms of harm, including aerial bombing, artillery shelling, small arms fire, sniper fire, starvation, and lack of clean drinking water and sanitation? Will those residing within safe zones be protected from harm by all perpetrators (including by Russian fighter-bombers and U.S.-backed rebel groups in Syria, or by indiscriminate Saudi airstrikes in Yemen)? Which countries will provide the military forces for the many tasks required to enforce the safe zones (suppression of enemy air defenses, logistical support, combat search and rescue, etc.)? Which groups or states will provide humanitarian assistance and be allowed access to those residing in the safe zones? Critically, who provides the ground forces to enforce and patrol the safe zones? Which nearby countries will allow safe zone forces basing and overflight rights, and for which missions specifically? Who has ultimate command authority for however many countries contribute forces? What military doctrine and rules of engagement will guide those forces enforcing the safe zones? Will force be used to prohibit arms groups from using the safe zones to shield their activities or recruit fighters, as they inevitably will try to do? Who pays, and for how long?  

As Donald Trump assumes office today, he inherits a targeted killing program that has been the cornerstone of U.S. counterterrorism strategy over the past eight years. On January 23, 2009, just three days into his presidency, President Obama authorized his first kinetic military action: two drone strikes, three hours apart, in Waziristan, Pakistan, that killed as many as twenty civilians. Two terms and 540 strikes later, Obama leaves the White House after having vastly expanding and normalizing the use of armed drones for counterterrorism and close air support operations in non-battlefield settings—namely Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia. Throughout his presidency, I have written often about Obama’s legacy as a drone president, including reports on how the United States could reform drone strike policies, what were the benefits of transferring CIA drone strikes to the Pentagon, and (with Sarah Kreps) how to limit armed drone proliferation. President Obama deserves credit for even acknowledging the existence of the targeted killing program (something his predecessor did not do), and for increasing transparency into the internal processes that purportedly guided the authorization of drone strikes. However, many needed reforms were left undone—in large part because there was zero pressure from congressional members, who, with few exceptions, were the biggest cheerleaders of drone strikes. On the first day of the Trump administration, it is too early to tell what changes he could implement. However, most of his predecessor’s reforms have either been voluntary, like the release of two reports totaling the number of strikes and both combatants and civilians killed, or executive guidelines that could be ignored with relative ease. Should he opt for an even more expansive and intensive approach, little would stand in his way, except for Democrats in Congress, who might have newfound concerns about the president’s war-making powers. Or perhaps citizens and investigative journalists, who may resist efforts to undermine transparency, accountability, and oversight mechanisms. Less than two weeks ago, the United States conducted a drone strike over central Yemen, killing one al-Qaeda operative. The strike was the last under Obama (that we know of). The 542 drone strikes that Obama authorized killed an estimated 3,797 people, including 324 civilians. As he reportedly told senior aides in 2011: “Turns out I’m really good at killing people. Didn’t know that was gonna be a strong suit of mine.”  

There is heavy media attention to the Nigerian air force’s tragic, accidental bombing of a camp for internally displaced persons near Rann, in northeast Nigeria. Though details are hardly definitive, it appears that the attack resulted from the mistaken identification of the camp as a center of Boko Haram. (Recently, Boko Haram has been active in the area.) As is usually the case when such accidents happen in northeast Nigeria, the numbers killed are not definitively known, but appear to be in the fifty to one hundred range. The media reports that the number of dead is likely to increase because of the difficulty of evacuating the wounded from an isolated area and because of the inadequacy of medical facilities in the camp. The dead include humanitarian workers for the Red Cross and Doctors without Borders. Both organizations have issued scathing public statements. No cover-up appears to be underway. The security services have promised an investigation, and President Muhammadu Buhari has issued an apology with condolences to the victims and their families. There are anecdotes of other such episodes whereby innocent civilians have been killed by the Nigerian security services, either by mistake or because they are caught in the middle of a fire fight with Boko Haram. In the past, unlike in this case, there has been little official transparency. There have long been complaints about the inadequacy of security service tactical intelligence about Boko Haram activity. Concern about accidents such as Rann has played a role in the reluctance by the United States to authorize Nigerian purchase of certain types of aircraft, especially those which require extensive pilot training which the Nigerian air force has not received. U.S. experience in Afghanistan and Iraq has been that accidents like Rann have the potential for alienating the local population. Indeed, Nigerian security service abuses in the past have been identified as a significant driver of Boko Haram recruitment.

This blog post was coauthored with my research associate, Jennifer Wilson.  [Note: This post was updated to reflect an additional strike in Yemen in 2016, announced by U.S. Central Command on January 12, 2017.] As President Obama enters the final weeks of his presidency, there will be ample assessments of his foreign military approach, which has focused on reducing U.S. ground combat troops (with the notable exception of the Afghanistan surge), supporting local security partners, and authorizing the expansive use of air power. Whether this strategy “works”—i.e. reduces the threat posed by extremists operating from those countries and improves overall security and governance on the ground—is highly contested. Yet, for better or worse, these are the central tenets of the Obama doctrine. In President Obama’s last year in office, the United States dropped 26,172 bombs in seven countries. This estimate is undoubtedly low, considering reliable data is only available for airstrikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya, and a single "strike," according to the Pentagon’s definition, can involve multiple bombs or munitions. In 2016, the United States dropped 3,028 more bombs—and in one more country, Libya—than in 2015. Most (24,287) were dropped in Iraq and Syria. This number is based on the percentage of total coalition airstrikes carried out in 2016 by the United States in Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR), the counter-Islamic State campaign. The Pentagon publishes a running count of bombs dropped by the United States and its partners, and we found data for 2016 using OIR public strike releases and this handy tool.* Using this data, we found that in 2016, the United States conducted about 79 percent (5,904) of the coalition airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, which together total 7,473. Of the total 30,743 bombs that the coalition dropped, then, the United States dropped 24,287 (79 percent of 30,743). To determine how many U.S. bombs were dropped on each Iraq and Syria, we looked at the percentage of total U.S. OIR airstrikes conducted in each country. They were nearly evenly split, with 49.8 percent (or 2,941 airstrikes) carried out in Iraq, and 50.2 percent (or 2,963 airstrikes) in Syria. Therefore, the number of bombs dropped were also nearly the same in the two countries (12,095 in Iraq; 12,192 in Syria). Last year, the United States conducted approximately 67 percent of airstrikes in Iraq in 2016, and 96 percent of those in Syria.   Sources: Estimate based upon Combined Forces Air Component Commander 2011-2016 Airpower Statistics; CJTF-Operation Inherent Resolve Public Affairs Office strike release, December 31, 2016; New America (NA); Long War Journal (LWJ); The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ); Department of Defense press release; and U.S. Africa Command press release.   *Our data is based on OIR totals between January 10, 2016 and December 31, 2016

Sungtae (Jacky) Park is research associate at the Council on Foreign Relations. On January 2, President-elect Donald Trump tweeted that a nuclear North Korea capable of hitting parts of the United States "won’t happen." Yet, North Korea has been advancing its nuclear and missile capabilities at an alarming pace, and he will not be the first president to face the North Korean threat. George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama all attempted but failed to address the issue. Trump cannot continue the current path and expect different results. But, before looking for a different path, the new administration first should ask a number of hard questions that might better shed light on the nature of the problem and the decisions that could or should be made. Read in The Diplomat about the four hard questions that should be asked...

I spoke with Matthew Fuhrmann, associate professor of political science at Texas A&M University, visiting associate professor at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, and one of the  most innovative scholars of nuclear proliferation. We discussed Matt’s soon-to-be released book Nuclear Weapons and Coercive Diplomacy (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming). The book was co-authored with University of Virginia associate professor of politics Todd Sechser, whom I spoke with earlier this year. Matt and I discussed his research on targeting and attacking nuclear programs, the risks of peaceful nuclear proliferation, and the effectiveness of arms control agreements. Matt also recently coauthored a fascinating article with Michael Horowitz and Sarah Kreps, “The Consequences of Drone Proliferation: Separating Fact from Fiction.” Hear Matt’s advice for young political science and international relations scholars, follow him @mcfuhrmann, and listen to my conversation with a policy-relevant international security scholar.

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: