Customer Reviews

Non-state Threats and Future Wars

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Edit of 21 Dec 07 to add links.

The authors, with the exception of those writing about intelligence, are world-class, and if you have not read many books about 4th Generation Warfare, non-traditional threats, and non-state actors as forces in their own right, then this is a superb single book to obtain and read.

If, on the other hand, you have read most of the books and articles written by these talented individuals, you will find the book irritatingly "old"--most of these ideas were published ten years ago, and the book is a superb undergraduate publication well-suited for those who have not done the prior reading.

The book is a reflection of its institutional provenance, and brings together a mix of defense writers and the current crop of transnational crime academics and practitioners. It does not adequately discuss the non-violent traditional threats (water and resource scarcity, mass migration and genocide, pollution and corruption, inter alia), and it does not really discuss the future in creative ways.

There is no index and the bibliography is marginal.

There is one bright spot, and it alone makes the book worthy of purchase: Phil Williams, a top academic with superb law enforcement and national security connections at the working level, provides a preface that is concise and useful. He begins by pointing out that Clinton as well as Bush to date have ignored non-state threats, specifically including terrorism, and failed to understand the gravity and imminence of the asymmetrical threat. He lists five realities and three solutions:

Reality #1: International security is more complex. It is not sufficient to focus only on states.

Reality #2: Distinction between foreign and domestic security is gone--one cannot have homeland security in isolation from global security, and vice versa.

Reality #3: States are not what they were--the balance of power now requires that states, corporations, and organizations find new means of coordinating policies, capabilities, and actions.

Reality #4: Non-state enemies are everything that states--and especially the USA--are not. They are networked, transitional, flexible, learn from their mistakes, can embed themselves invisibly into existing financial and other communities, and possess a capacity for regeneration that national policy-makers simply do not appreciate.

Reality #5: Globalization has down and dark sides. It is imposing costs that lead to "blowback" and it is diffusing technologies and capabilities to non-state actors to the point that the complexity of Western infrastructures is now the greatest vulnerabilities of all of these state-based societies.

He concludes with three solutions: get intelligence right (a draconian challenge); change mind-sets (an equally draconian challenge); and revitalize and revamp the entire institutional archipelago through which national security policy, acquisitions, and operations are planned and executed (also a draconian challenge).

This is an excellent and reasonably priced undergraduate paperback, and a fine primer for those who are not already steeped in the literature. It does not significantly advance the literature in and of itself.

See also, with reviews:
A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility--Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change
Seeing the Invisible: National Security Intelligence in an Uncertain Age
The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People
The Eagle's Shadow: Why America Fascinates and Infuriates the World
Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror

Non-State Threats and Future Wars edited by Robert J. Bunker brings together a world-class team of defense scholars, law enforcement specialists, and military thinkers like Martin van Creveld and Ralph Peters to speak about issues that are truly post-Soviet: the changing nature of warfare, decentralized intelligence structures, the continuing blur between law enforcement and military operations, the use of mercenaries, non-lethal weapons, and preparing for intense urban operations. Non-State Threats and Future Wars like most national security study-related books written in the last ten years or so, starts off with the proverbial introductory phrase "since the collapse of the Soviet Union." However, unlike most books on the national security studies market, Non-State Threats and Futures Wars reaches beyond most so-called "post-Soviet ideas" like adding a new kind of sensor package to a tank and calling that an innovation fit for the new battlespace. In fact most of the authors who contributed to this book would question the utility of the main battle tank entirely.

T. Lindsay Moore's article "Fourth Epochal War" questions the utility of military concepts of "exhaustion" and/or "wars of density," which he defines as antiquated concepts of warfare unable to adapt to the realities of the new battlefield. Moore draws upon the lessons of history to demonstrate his point. Arguing by analogy, Moore suggests that "current weapons of efficiency," like the main battle tank, for example, on the post-modern battlefield, peppered with non-state terrorist networks, inter alia, is analogous to the medieval knights of old who were riddled with arrows at Crécy in 1346 by English long bow archers who not only were more mobile than the heavy knights, but refused to fight on the French knight's chivalrous level. The medieval knight's chivalrous code of combat and main armaments failed to defeat the new enemy just as the United States could fail to defeat the new enemies of the twenty-first century (criminal-soldiers, terrorists, warlords, and drug dealers) if the U.S. does not learn from the past and adopt new tactics, operations, and strategies that address the new strategic environment, which is very different from our current nation-state-based, force-on-force, traditional strategic model.

One of the overarching themes of Non-State Threats and Future Wars is that networked organizational structures are more apt do deal with post-modern security threats than are the traditional bureaucratic hierarchies of nation-states. The authors writing specifically on this subject understand that the nation-state and its concomitant bureaucratic hierarchies will remain the dominant form for political and social organization for many decades to come. However, the authors suggest that the two organizational forms can co-exist: they believe that some sort of decentralized network that spans military, intelligence, law enforcement and emergency services can and must be grafted upon related traditional hierarchies to quickly move through Colonel Boyd's famous O-O-D-A (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) loop, which is crucial in a security environment loaded with non-state actors.

The days when military and law enforcement operations were mutually exclusive are over. Military and national intelligence agencies can no longer hoard their respective intelligence and must act in accord with law enforcement to combat terrorism that will most likely take place in our backyard. The wars of the future will not always be fought by the military "over there." Military and intelligence officers should read this book because it paints a template for future conflict in an "out-of-the-box" context. And a little out-of-the-box thinking can and usually does go a long way.

"Non-State Threats and Future Wars" edited by Robert J. Bunker brings together a world-class team of defense scholars, law enforcement specialists, and military thinkers like Martin van Creveld and Ralph Peters to speak about issues that are truly post-Soviet: the changing nature of warfare, decentralized intelligence structures, the continuing blur between law enforcement and military operations, the use of mercenaries, non-lethal weapons, and preparing for intense urban operations. "Non-State Threats and Future Wars" like most national security study-related books written in the last ten years or so, starts off with the proverbial introductory phrase "since the collapse of the Soviet Union." However, unlike most books on the national security studies market, "Non-State Threats and Futures Wars" reaches beyond most so-called "post-Soviet ideas" like adding a new kind of sensor package to a tank and calling that an innovation fit for the new battlespace. In fact most of the authors who contributed to this book would question the utility of the main battle tank entirely.

T. Lindsay Moore's article "Fourth Epochal War" questions the utility of military concepts of "exhaustion" and/or "wars of density," which he defines as antiquated concepts of warfare unable to adapt to the realities of the new battlefield. Moore draws upon the lessons of history to demonstrate his point. Arguing by analogy, Moore suggests that "current weapons of efficiency," like the main battle tank, for example, on the post-modern battlefield, peppered with non-state terrorist networks, inter alia, is analogous to the medieval knights of old who were riddled with arrows at Crécy in 1346 by English long bow archers who not only were more mobile than the heavy knights, but refused to fight on the French knight's chivalrous level. The medieval knight's chivalrous code of combat and main armaments failed to defeat the new enemy just as the United States could fail to defeat the new enemies of the twenty-first century (criminal-soldiers, terrorists, warlords, and drug dealers) if the U.S. does not learn from the past and adopt new tactics, operations, and strategies that address the new strategic environment, which is very different from our current nation-state-based, force-on-force, traditional strategic model.

One of the overarching themes of "Non-State Threats and Future Wars" is that networked organizational structures are more apt do deal with post-modern security threats than are the traditional bureaucratic hierarchies of nation-states. The authors writing specifically on this subject understand that the nation-state and its concomitant bureaucratic hierarchies will remain the dominant form for political and social organization for many decades to come. However, the authors suggest that the two organizational forms can co-exist: they believe that some sort of decentralized network that spans military, intelligence, law enforcement and emergency services can and must be grafted upon related traditional hierarchies to quickly move through Colonel Boyd's famous O-O-D-A (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) loop, which is crucial in a security environment loaded with non-state actors.

The days when military and law enforcement operations were mutually exclusive are over. Military and national intelligence agencies can no longer hoard their respective intelligence and must act in accord with law enforcement to combat terrorism that will most likely take place in our backyard. The wars of the future will not always be fought by the military "over there." Military and intelligence officers should read this book because it paints a template for future conflict in an "out-of-the-box" context. And a little out-of-the-box thinking can and usually does go a long way.