6 THE DESTRUCTIVE CONSEQUENCES OF NETWORK CENTRISM
The distorted view of war that Network Centrism had to introduce in order to justify its pre-existing determination to pursue information technology to the exclusion of everything else is bound to have consequences. Some of these consequences could very well be destructive. It is important, therefore, that we take a distanced view of these consequences and try to understand the extent to which they might be detrimental to our national interests. In what follows, we focus upon some of the most visible of these consequences.
6.1 A RELENTLESS DRIVE FOR INNOVATION MAY HURT SECURITY
Encouraged by the Network Centric obsession with information technology, the military establishment is inadvertently beginning to let its statutory responsibility for securing the nation’s interest against enemy attack be reduced to the secondary goal of achieving technological supremacy. There is a simplistic expectation that, if our war machine were technologically superior to that of other nations, any potential enemy would just go away. Little thought need thus be given to the nature of the likely enemy and to the way that he may react in face of our technological supremacy. In a certain sense, Network Centrists are trying to replace nuclear deterrence with a technological one.
This view of things ignores two simple facts about the world, things that just will not disappear in the face of technological supremacy: the enemy is often more ingenious than we give him credit for, and use of weapons of mass destruction by potential enemies cannot be deterred by mere technological supremacy. Let us address the potentially destructive effect of each of these in turn.
Concerning enemy ingenuity, it has been recognized for almost a decade now that our drive towards technological supremacy is driving the likely enemy to an asymmetric response. Asymmetric warfare means warfare in which the enemy, unable to confront us on our own terms directly, would focus instead on exploiting our weaknesses. To handle an asymmetric enemy, we would have to develop therefore a new set of rules governing the use of force in a world characterized by failed states, rampant terrorism, and easy availability of highly destructive weapons. A profound re-assessment of our strategic plans, as well as a thorough re-examination of our tactical systems with an eye toward identifying and eliminating the exploitable vulnerabilities in our capability, would thus be needed. In the end, we should find a way of employing our military forces, not so much in the service of securing complete destruction of an enemy force that might not even take the field against us, as in the service of gaining the political influence needed to control the disorderly world that threatens the western civilization. For, what value power if having it gains us no influence?
Apparently unwilling to undertake this challenging responsibility, Network Centrists found a way of changing the subject. The formal justification for this rather bizarre move away from reality was a spectacular leger de main: they proceeded to redefine asymmetric warfare to mean, not warfare designed to counter our enemy’s predilection for attacking our vulnerabilities, but rather warfare designed to rely exclusively upon our own technological superiority. According to this definition, it is our asymmetric strength that really matters, not the enemy’s asymmetric ability to avoid the effects of that strength. The virtue of this extraordinary semantic switch is that it allows Network Centrists to focus on continued development of our technological strength without much regard for the evolving nature of our enemy and his behavior. After all, unilaterally increasing our technological strength is significantly less complicated than figuring out what a wily enemy may or may not do to survive its employment.
The fact that doing so would endanger our national security by leaving untouched the very vulnerabilities that the enemy is likely to exploit, does not seem to occur to the proponents of Network Centrism. And yet, we can all easily remember still how al Qaeda forces rendered Allied strike operations largely ineffective, despite the spectacular technological prowess of our strike systems, by simply hiding in the Afghan mountains; had it not been for the strategic threat posed by the Northern Alliance to their control of Afghanistan, al Qaeda forces could easily have outlasted Allied willingness to sustain the strike operations. Absent the Northern Alliance, this simple stratagem used by the enemy would have worked perfectly well because it cleverly exploited a blatant vulnerability in our strike capability, namely the presupposition that the enemy will always expose himself to detection.
Ignoring the fact that technological supremacy will not deter potential enemies from acquiring and using weapons of mass destruction, could be just as dangerous. Nuclear deterrence worked during the Cold War because the extraordinary stakes involved in the confrontation with the Soviet Union would clearly have justified launching nuclear weapons, and everybody in the world knew that; it no longer works now, because the stakes are significantly smaller. It just does not seem credible anymore that the western powers would actually employ nuclear weapons to deal with the likes of Saddam Hussein. Under these conditions, rogue nations, or even terrorists groups around the world, would be tempted to ignore the threat of nuclear retaliation and proceed to do pretty much what they liked.
The Allies have yet to find a replacement for the old deterrence mechanism. That such a mechanism is needed, follows from the recognition that the Allies can not be called upon to re-establish order in the world every time somebody is inclined to disturb it. One may fight against the Serbs here and the Taliban there, but one can not fight against everybody everywhere. Until a deterrence mechanism responsive to today’s circumstances is found, our unwillingness to use weapons of mass destruction against nations that do not truly endanger our national survival the same way that the Soviets did, tends to encourage rogue nations to acquire such weapons for themselves as a means of securing their own individual geo-political interests. As long as they do not try to attack us preemptively at home, they expect to be able to use these weapons as a deterrent against our interference into their own plans. Consider the case of North Korea whose nuclear weapons are acting as an effective deterrent against its immediate neighbors just now.
Despite the manifest value that a new deterrence mechanism able to slow down the current march toward international disorder would have for our collective security, the military establishment does not appear to be spending much effort in finding such a mechanism. Thoroughly imbued with the Network Centric dream which suggests that deterrence lies just beyond information superiority, it is imprudently allowing our enemies the freedom of action that they obtain from their arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. One can only hope that the day will never come when we shall regret having endangered our national security by neglecting the issue of deterrence.
While this is not the place for exploring the possible forms that such a new deterrence mechanism might take, it would be useful to indicate the general direction in which one ought to look. Since, despite appearances, most current international security challenges involve personal ambitions of local leaders rather than widespread popular aspirations, the way to deter is, we suggest, through the personal security of that leader. By making it well known that no leader whose personal ambitions would irritate the international tranquility can ever be secure in its person, one might be able to control the global ramifications of any actions undertaken by such leaders. It stand to reason, that their personal security would be central to their program, either because they cherished their own life, or because their death would signal the end of their ambitions. In any case, finding the technology that would convince any leader that challenging world order is tantamount to suicide, should go a long way towards deterring his desire to disturb that order.