If the U.S. experience in Iraq and the rescue efforts that followed Hurricane Katrina contain any common lesson, it's that the military and civilian agencies of the government must learn to work together more closely and to think outside the box to meet today's complex challenges.
That was the focus of Forum 2005, the day-long symposium for members of the Sea Services held in Arlington, Virginia, on 8 September and sponsored jointly by the U.S. Naval Institute and the Marine Corps Association.
Marine General Peter Pace, incoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also questioned what some analysts view as the inevitability that China is destined to become a superpower military adversary of the United States, replacing the former Soviet Union. He said the U.S. should act now to strengthen economic ties with China.
General Pace's remarks about China were brief, but they may well reflect the Bush administration's view of what the U.S.-China relationship should be. "I do not believe China is the next mostlikely peer competitor," he said. "I do not believe it is inevitable that we will be enemies."
Three days later in Hong Kong, Admiral William J. Fallen, Commander, U.S. Pacific Command, reinforced General Pace's comments by calling for closer cooperation between the United States and Chinese militaries and an agreement about how to coordinate responses to natural disasters.
Marine lieutenant General James N. Mattis, commanding general of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command, outlined the new kinds of challenges that U.S. forces have faced in "hybrid" wars such as Iraq-the breakdown of government, the emergence of "cunning" and "elusive" insurgents, the onset of ethnic strife and the difficulty of winning over the local populationthat are well beyond what traditionally has been the military's role in combat operations. He called for closer cooperation, amounting to joint planning operations involving both the military and civilian arms of government, from diplomats to law-enforcement specialists.
"The most significant change in the security environment that we must make is the expansion from a defense or a military-centric form of defense into one that is much broader in its national security perspective as far as our ability to strategically and operationally apply all elements of national power," General Mattis said. "We need to be able to plan and execute multi-agency operations, using the combined-arms effects of diplomacy, law enforcement, civic aid projects, and educational programs, as well as provide security for the civilian populations of fragile states."
General Mattis also called for a new government effort that would specialize in "information operations"-trying to persuade civilian populations in countries such as Iraq to reject the "ideologies of hatred" proffered by insurgents, and to embrace instead the principles of democracy and tolerance. Critics have complained that too many Iraqis have little besides Al Jazeera, the Arab satellite television channel, to provide their news.
In the keynote address, General Pace-in the only speaking engagement he has accepted since being nominated JCS chairman-touched on a snag in achieving closer military-civilian cooperation in disaster-relief operations involving post-Katrina efforts: The fact that legal constraints prevent the military from making full use of its capabilities quickly in helping state and local officials respond to natural disasters of this magnitude-or to the devastation that follows terrorist attacks.
Dr. Andrew F. Krepinevich, a retired Army officer who now heads the Washingtonbased Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a defense-oriented research group, told the symposium that only the military has the capability to act as the "first mover" in the wake of such kinds of contingencies: It has the personnel, the command-and-control structure, the communications, the transportation equipment, and the experience to deal with broad-scale calamities. Indeed, newspaper accounts said units of all five services were on alert several days before Katrina's landfall. The new Northern Command, established to head military operations at home in case of terrorist attacks involving weapons of mass destruction, approved operations plans.
Yet, government officials told some reporters that the military's response was delayed, in part because it was constrained by law. Under the Posse Comitatus Act, an 1878 law designed to prevent Union troops from occupying the defeated South permanently, the military can't come into a state en masse without a specific invitation from the governor even if local police and fire departments are incapacitated. To override that, the president would have to invoke a separate statute, known as the Insurrection Act. Both steps are difficult for political leaders. Asking the federal government to assume command under the Posse Comitatus Act would require a governor to relinquish control of the state's National Guard. The Insurrection Act was last used in 1963 to force then-Alabama Governor George Wallace to integrate the University of Alabama. New Orleans was wracked by looting for the first several days after the hurricane.
General Pace's suggestion was that authorities consider revising the Posse Comitatus Act so that U.S. military units could begin rescue, disaster relief, and even law-enforcement operations early and effectively in cases of New Orleanssized natural disasters or WMD attacks. The overhaul shouldn't eliminate the current prohibition against military forces conducting combat operations on U.S. soil, he said-just pave the way for the military to provide help early.
In a domestic version of General Mattis's proposal, General Pace also called on U.S. disaster-response agencies to emulate the military by setting up joint interagency task forces, involving a wide range of federal, state, and local entities, both in Washington and out in the field, to deal with natural disasters and massive terrorist attacks.
Yet, there should be limits to any changes, some at the symposium contended. Assistant Marine Corps Commandant General Robert Magnus firmly rejected a suggestion that the military be given full responsibility for first-responder operations in such situation. "That's not the responsibility of our military-we absolutely must have civilian authority," General Magnus said. He urged giving state and local personnel some of the same training and equipment that the military now has to provide them with the command-andcontrol and other capabilities they need to do their jobs.
Iraq, Katrina, and China weren't the only topics of discussion at the conference. The symposium's rich agenda included panels on the state of the Sea Services and on whether today's competing priorities are creating a new level of service rivalry. The consensus on that latter question was a resounding "no." Dr. Thomas Hone, assistant director for risk management of the Office of Force Transformation in the Office of the secretary of Defense, said jointness is working better than ever. "What the services are doing now is not only cooperating," he said, "they're starting to depend heavily on each other."
The estimated 350 participants included both uniformed personnel and civilians, who peppered panelists and guest speakers with questions and exchanged views with one another at lunch and at a post-meeting reception.
The panels included Vice Admiral Terry M. Cross, vice commandant of the Coast Guard; Admiral Robert F. Willard, vice chief of naval operations; retired Navy Captain Joseph F. Bouchard, executive director of the Center for Homeland security and Defense, Zel Technologies LLC; Navy Captain Gerard D. Roncolato, of the CNO's staff and chairman of the USNI Editorial Board; retired Army lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters, author of New Glory: Expanding America's Global Supremacy, retired Navy Captain Bruce Stubbs, technical director of Anteon Corp.; Thomas E. Ricks, military affairs reporter for the Washington Post, Marine Corps Brigadier General Michael R. Regner, assistant to the deputy commandant for combat development and integration; and Vincent J. Walls Jr., acting director of the logistics planning and innovation division in the Office of the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Fleet Readiness and Logistics.
The kicker came from the CSBA's Dr. Krepinevich. After General Magnus used a Latin phrase during his presentation on a state-of-the-Sea-Services panel, Dr. Krepinevich quipped: "If nothing else, all of you can go home tonight and say, 'I saw a Marine general and he spoke Latin to me.'" And it wasn't just Semper Fidelis.