How Will We Fight?

By General Wesley Clark

Throughout history, the world's military have prepared for the next war guided by how the last war was fought. In the face of exploding technological advances in weaponry and communications, shifting international political and economic power, and the rise of challenges such as terrorism and international crime, is the last war a true guide or a risky diversion?

As NATO aircraft lit the sky over Yugoslavia at the start of Operation Allied Force last year, NATO's political leaders were stating that "NATO is not at war with Yugoslavia." Tell that to the pilots who flew night and day against the missiles and antiaircraft fire over Serbia and who saw the effects of the ethnic cleansing on the ground!

Operation Allied Force was a campaign extending over 78 days and involving more than 900 aircraft, hundreds of cruise missiles, four aircraft carriers and more than a dozen other ships and submarines. Their mission was to use air power to halt or diminish a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing being carried out by more than 50,000 Serb military, police and paramilitary against 1 1/2 million virtually defenseless ethnic Albanians. More than 250 fixed targets were attacked, including airfields, communications facilities, fuel depots, and military and police headquarters. The more than 1,000 strikes conducted against enemy forces in Kosovo--while not destroying as much Serbian military equipment as analysts initially thought--kept these forces largely undercover and ineffective.

But it was not officially a war. Many peacetime legal and political restrictions remained in effect. Governments limited the pace of the action, the types of weapons that could be used and the targets that could be struck. Our targets were often in the midst of civilians--some of the very people we were trying to help. We looked at each target carefully before we struck, and we used precision weapons--laser-, GPS- or TV-guided bombs and missiles--as often as possible to limit risks to innocent civilians.

We reduced the risks to our own pilots by using high-technology aircraft to frustrate the enemy's air defenses. Video-teleconferencing and virtual-intelligence centers created by using a secret, high-capacity Internet helped keep up with the detailed top-down guidance and changing politics directed by an alliance of 19 sovereign states--all as the world's media looked on. After 78 days, the opposing leader gave in to NATO's demands, without a single NATO ground soldier having to fight his way into Serbia.

Is this the future of warfare? Not necessarily. But many features of this conflict will reappear. Operation Allied Force was one step in the continuing evolution of conflict.

The pattern really began with Napoleon and forces unleashed during the French Revolution. By mobilizing the full resources of France, Napoleon created a new approach to warfare. Young people were drafted, centralized administrative structures were created, and arms production was expanded and standardized. In this new approach the stakes were high. Defeat meant the loss of the state and its territories, as a number of European monarchs discovered.

But in warfare there is a response for almost any development. Other European states adopted the French military model and, working together, defeated Napoleon. The forces of industrial-age war had been unleashed. As noted by Karl von Clausewitz, the foremost military observer of the era, war in theory knows no limits and thus tends naturally to the extreme application of violence.

Clausewitz got it right. Using the full powers of government, nation-states applied scientific advances to increase the destructive powers of their forces. With improved organization and weaponry, 20th century wars killed tens of millions of combatants and civilians. And the march of science and technology continues. World War II forces look pale in comparison to the tanks, armed helicopters, automatic cannon, aircraft and precision-strike capabilities available today, to say nothing of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

As the destructive potential of conflict has grown, the political efforts to prevent and restrict it have intensified. Especially in Europe and among the major nuclear powers, a variety of measures, ranging from arms limitations to special procedures for dialogue, have reinforced the strategic deterrence underwritten by the major powers' nuclear weaponry.

And the same technologies that have made war so lethal now prevent or restrict it by shrinking the distance and differences between peoples and nations. The "global village" creates opportunities for greater mutual understanding and an identity as a larger community, and reduces the acceptance of violence and aggression. As a result, war is increasingly constrained by law and the public's assessment of just causes and acceptable costs.

Operation Allied Force was this sort of campaign, undertaken as a last resort in pursuit of human rights and regional stability. NATO acted reluctantly against a government perpetrating a great wrong against its own people. The conflict reflected, at least on the allied side, all the inhibitions of two centuries of effort to limit warfare as well as a growing spirit of international community. As a French pilot remarked during the operation, "We don't want to bomb these bridges over the Danube or hurt the Serb people. They are our European brothers. And who will have to pay to rebuild the bridges?" The political constraints of Operation Allied Force and the preoccupation with avoiding casualties and risks were derived from its purpose--to support human rights and promote regional stability--and the fact that NATO member nations' survival interests were not at stake.

In this era of globalization there may be other such conflicts ahead. These will be minimal-risk campaigns, emphasizing aerospace power or ships at sea to threaten precision strikes from long range, with small, stealthy unmanned vehicles to collect information and deliver firepower, and they will be controlled by distant leaders using virtual command technologies. Even better, if we have the capability, will be cyberwar to scramble an enemy's military command or disrupt electricity systems without bloodshed.

But potential adversaries are carefully studying the lessons of Allied Force, and they will no doubt reduce their vulnerabilities while seeking some advantage over us. Expect improved air defenses and better air cover, camouflage and deception--more military assets hidden in hotels and schoolhouses or buried deep for protection. And these states will be seeking their own deterrent in the form of longer-range missiles with chemical or biological warheads as well as terrorist and cyberattack capabilities. Pentagon strategists call that kind of warfare asymmetric--which means that even small nations with the right weapons and technologies will be able to pose very real security threats to big powers such as the U.S.

In these circumstances, or when the vital interests of Western nations are at stake, the restraints of Operation Allied Force may not apply. Despite their aversion to risks and casualties, most Western nations will, if necessary, be politically capable of waging intense, highly destructive warfare. Expect nations to use most of the weapons at their disposal, including ground forces, and to take greater risks. There may be deep helicopter-borne assaults, fierce night attacks and sweeping armored maneuvers, all supported by highly lethal area weapons and long-range precision-kill capabilities. Political constraints will be relaxed, and control of the actions will be delegated to on-scene commanders. Unfortunately, significantly greater casualty rates can be expected among both military and civilian populations.

There will be other requirements for ground troops too, such as the lengthy and difficult peace-support missions in the Balkans. These may not seem like war, but the troops are armed and ready. They prefer to use presence, maneuver and intimidation to accomplish their purpose rather than active combat. But they can act, and they sometimes must defend themselves.

And technology will give opportunities to the so-called non-state actors, the terrorists and international organized-crime cartels. Equipped with sophisticated weaponry and communications, they will be dangerous adversaries. This will be a long-term struggle in the shadows, marked occasionally by long-range missile strikes or pre-emptive actions by elite special forces.

In the future we will seldom fight alone; we must be able to operate with our allies. Land and naval forces will be needed as well as aerospace power, and all must be able to work jointly. We will still require a nuclear deterrent. Our armed forces must have the latest in technology and be agile enough to use it to achieve their assigned objectives within the directed political constraints. But, above all, we will still need talented, resourceful and courageous men and women to fight and direct our military actions.

U.S. Army General Wesley Clark has served as the NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe from 1997 until this month