[iwar] [fc:At.Pentagon:.Worries.Over.War's.Costs,.Consequences]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-10-22 07:24:51


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Subject: [iwar] [fc:At.Pentagon:.Worries.Over.War's.Costs,.Consequences]
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Washington Post
October 21, 2001
At Pentagon: Worries Over War's Costs, Consequences
Some Fear Regional Destabilization, Retribution Against U.S.
By Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post Staff Writer 

As the U.S. military begins combat ground operations in Afghanistan, some
Pentagon officials are concerned about where the conflict ultimately will
lead, and whether tactical military gains in Afghanistan could lead to
bigger strategic problems for the United States and its allies. 
The concerns run from the possibility the military campaign could
destabilize neighboring Pakistan to the prospect that it could spark a much
broader war involving several nations in the region and beyond. The
officials warn the war will require enormous sacrifices and could prompt
additional attacks on the United States. 

The Afghan war "seems to be a short-term, possibly shortsighted strategy,"
said one general who is not directly involved in the anti-terrorism
campaign. "Our actions so far show only short-term thinking." 
With a tight lid clamped down at the Pentagon on the release of information
about the war, most concerns like this officer's are being expressed in
private. But in the next circle of the defense establishment, among people
who consult frequently with the top levels of the military, the misgivings
come through loud and clear. 

"You can go and kill every one of their terrorists and hang [Osama] bin
Laden in front of the White House and you still haven't solved the problem
-- and you've probably created hundreds of new terrorists," said retired
Col. Richard Dunn, a former chief of the Army's internal think tank. "So you
could win tactically, and lose strategically." 

The Bush administration has hinted at such apprehensions, with senior
officials warning in recent weeks that the anti-terrorism war will be long
and hard. But the White House has yet to spell out what some of the costs
and consequences of the war might be, both overseas and at home. 
"I think it is up to the administration to make it clear that the costs of
this war will be heavy, and the war will feel almost endless, but that not
doing it means the end of the way we live," said Williamson Murray, a
retired Ohio University specialist in strategy and 20th century military
history. 

The experts' worries begin with Pakistan, whose government has sided with
the United States in the anti-terrorism war but whose predominantly Muslim
population appears to be generally sympathetic to the Taliban, the Islamic
extremist movement ruling most of Afghanistan. Of dozens of experts
contacted for this article, each expressed concern about the stability of
Pakistan. Most worried that the war could undermine the country's president,
Pervez Musharraf, a general who took power in a 1999 coup. 

"We've asked a lot" of Pakistan, conceded one administration official. But,
he added, "we are going to ask more of them." He declined to say what such
additional requests would be, but military planners said Pakistan will be
used as a staging ground for additional Special Operations raids like the
one launched into southern Afghanistan with more than 100 U.S. Army Rangers.

The U.S. government shares those concerns about Pakistan, said another
administration official, and is taking steps to compensate for the
destabilizing effects of the new U.S. military presence there. "If we wipe
out al Qaeda in Afghanistan and turn Pakistan over to some other version of
the Taliban, that's a net loss, there's no question," the official said.
"But that's an argument for succeeding in Pakistan, not an argument for
giving up." 

Specifically, he said the United States would seek to improve
military-to-military relationships -- especially with younger Pakistani
officers who have had little contact with the United States -- and also
would seek to provide more economic aid and de-emphasize nonproliferation as
an issue. 

Finally, this official said, not doing anything at all to counter terrorism
in the region would be the most destabilizing course the United States could
take. 

The prospect of Pakistan being taken over by Islamic extremists is
especially worrisome because it possesses nuclear weapons. The betting among
military strategists is that India, another nuclear power, would not stand
idly by, if it appeared that the Pakistani nuclear arsenal were about to
fall into the hands of extremists. 

A preemptive action by India to destroy Pakistan's nuclear stockpile could
provoke a new war on the subcontinent. The U.S. military has conducted more
than 25 war games involving a confrontation between a nuclear-armed India
and Pakistan, and each has resulted in nuclear war, said retired Air Force
Col. Sam Gardiner, an expert on strategic games. 

Having both the United States and India fighting Muslims would play into the
hands of bin Laden, warned Mackubin Owens, a strategist at the Naval War
College in Newport, R.I. "He could point out once again that this is the new
crusade," Owens said. 

The next step that worries experts is the regional effect of turmoil in
Pakistan. If its government fell, the experts fear, other Muslim governments
friendly to the United States, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, might follow
suit. "The ultimate nightmare is a pan-Islamic regime that possesses both
oil and nuclear weapons," said Harlan Ullman, a defense analyst at the
Center for Strategic and International Studies. 

Ullman argued that the arrival of U.S. troops in Pakistan to fight the
anti-terrorism war in Afghanistan could inadvertently help bin Laden achieve
his goal of sparking an anti-American revolt in the country. 

Andrew Bacevich, a professor of international relations at Boston
University, said it is possible "that we are sliding toward a summer-of-1914
sequence of events" -- when a cascading series of international incidents
spun out of control and led to World War I. 

Eliot Cohen, a professor of strategy at Johns Hopkins University, agreed.
"We could find ourselves engaged in a whole range of conflicts, from events
you can't anticipate now," he said. 

Both Bacevich and Cohen are former colleagues of the leading strategic
thinker at the Pentagon, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, who
previously was dean of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns
Hopkins. 

Wolfowitz is said to be the leading advocate within the administration of
attacking Iraq as part of an anti-terror campaign. President Bush has
threatened to take the campaign to countries the United States accuses of
supporting terrorism, but the administration lately has avoided discussing
what targets might come after Afghanistan, and whether Iraq might be next. 
At the same time, the administration has made it clear it expects the war to
extend well beyond Afghanistan. "We will do whatever it takes to defeat
terror abroad, wherever it grows or wherever it hides," Bush said in
California on Wednesday. "This nation will defeat terror wherever we find it
across the globe." 

The Air Force already is starting to identify possible targets for air
strikes after the Afghanistan campaign, said one person familiar with the
thinking of that service's leadership. "We've got targets after this," he
said. He hinted that Iraq is next, in light of the recent spate of anthrax
attacks by mail in the United States. "Where do you think this anthrax is
coming from?" 

U.S. law enforcement officials, however, have said they have no conclusive
evidence about the source of the anthrax used in the attacks. 

Talking too specifically about what comes after Afghanistan could reduce
support for the U.S.-led campaign and even destabilize Pakistan, one veteran
diplomat warned, noting that many Muslim countries backing Washington have
said the war should be limited to the Taliban and to bin Laden's al Qaeda
terrorist network. If the Pentagon isn't more careful, he said, "you blow
Pakistan sky high, and the mullahs will take over the missiles." 
Even if none of those fears about the fates of foreign countries are
realized, the new war could impose a high cost on American society, some
experts said. 

If the United States ends up fighting an entire generation of radical
Islamic terrorists, predicted Richard Kohn, a military historian at the
University of North Carolina, "we'll end up in a perpetual war." Americans
could find themselves living like Israelis and Palestinians do, putting up
with "oppressive security everywhere" and limits on personal freedoms that
change the tone of everyday life, he said. 

Added one defense expert, "I think the chance of a biological attack against
the U.S. in the next year is extremely high, and of a nuclear attack maybe 5
percent." 

Not all the strategic thinkers are gloomy. How the world has changed after
the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States presents more
opportunities than challenges, one Pentagon official argued. 

"At the end of a twisting tunnel, there are some enormous opportunities,"
agreed Robin Raphel, a former State Department official for South Asian
affairs. These begin with Afghanistan, she said, where there is a chance to
end a decade-old civil war and raise a significant amount of international
aid for reconstruction. 

Likewise, other experts argue that the U.S. diplomatic offensive is reaping
rewards around the globe. Pakistan has an opportunity to suppress
destabilizing Islamic extremists, Iran is sending friendly signals to the
United States, and even Libya is reaching out, they say. U.S.-Russian
relations also appear to have improved. 

Overall, said a former Pentagon official, the terrorist attacks have forced
the administration to deal realistically with the world. "All those other
problems [in Pakistan and elsewhere] were there already, but we weren't
thinking about them well," he said. "I thought we were going into a tailspin
of isolationism, and we've pulled out of that." 

At any rate, said retired Marine Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper, fretting about
strategic downsides may be useless because the alternative is worse. "If you
do nothing, you also destabilize," he said. And if the United States hadn't
responded in a powerful and effective manner, he added, it would have had to
endure terrorist attacks indefinitely. "So we're making the best of a bad
situation."

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