System
Perturbation: Conflict in the Age of
Globalization
By Dr.
Thomas P. M. Barnett and Professor Bradd C.
Hayes
Chapter 1 in Part I:
Globalization, Authority & Triggers of Conflict,
in Raymond W. Westphal Jr, ed, War and
Virtual War: The Challenges to Communities
(Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2003), pp.
5-18. Found
online @
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/publishing/idp/War
& Virtual War.pdf
Background
Aperiodically, the international system
reorders itself — normally in the aftermath of a
major conflict. This reordering is accompanied
by the implementation of new rule sets in an
attempt to firewall states from the causes of
the conflict. Policymakers have openly enquired
whether the end of the Cold War and the birth of
the information age require a new firebreak and
the implementation of a new set of rules.
Because "great power war" has been the proximate
cause of past restructuring, great power war has
been the ordering the principle for
international (and national) rules and
institutions. Recent events (from so-called the
Asian Economic Flu, to the Mexican peso crisis,
to the Love Bug computer virus, to the heinous
events of 11 September 2001) indicate that a new
ordering principle is required (one in which
great power war is but one possible outcome).
In helping America's Defense Department think
through the future of international security, we
have proposed that "system perturbation" be
examined as the new ordering principle. The best
way to describe this ordering principle is to
examine what happened on and after 11 September.
The attacks of 9/11 were not acts perpetrated by
a nation-state using traditional methods of
warfare. Yet their effect was momentous, like a
giant stone dropped in a calm pond. The initial
vertical shock was spectacular, but the
resulting horizontal ripples had longer-lasting
effects that went well beyond the security
field. This paper examines the underlying
precepts of system perturbation and potential
triggers that could lead to great power
conflict. It argues that these triggers will
likely foment in places where globalization is
actively resisted and by individuals who will
use information age tools to oppose
globalization's spread and content. We argue
that great powers are less likely to confront
one another than they are to cooperate to
eliminate super-empowered individuals (or
groups) trying to disrupt the global economy.
Firewalling the
Past
The military is constantly accused of
planning and training for the last war instead
of the next one. Military leaders deny it, of
course, but the truth is that planning for the
unknown — and getting it right — is extremely
difficult. The military is an easy target for
critics, yet, if it has had a checkered past
when it comes to planning for the next great
upheaval, others in the national security
community (including politicians, diplomats, and
economists) have done even worse. The best they
have been able to do is firewall the future from
the past. Political scientists trace the roots
of the nation-state to the 1648 Treaty of
Westphalia. That treaty, in effect, was one of
the first modern firewalls as it attempted to
isolate religion from secular politics. Leaders
believed that religious competition had fostered
needless unrest and suffering. The treaty came
after 30-years of bloodshed, during which
one-third of Europe's population died either in
battle or from plague, malnutrition, or similar
war-related causes. Who wouldn't want to
firewall themselves from such a catastrophe? As
noted above, that kind of firewalling has
accompanied almost all major conflicts.
Skip ahead some 150 years to the beginning of
the 19th century. The Congress of Vienna and the
Concert of Europe were established following the
Napoleonic Wars. The Hague Conventions were
drafted after the unification of Germany.
Something else was happening as well. Although
the term was yet to be invented, globalization
was cracking its shell. This first period of
globalization began with European colonization,
but really hit its stride during the industrial
revolution with its huge appetite for raw
material. It was marked by the massive movement
of resources from colonies to the motherland and
distribution of finished goods from the
motherland to the world. It was accompanied by
the free movement of labor, otherwise known as
emigration. It was possible to travel the length
of Europe without a passport. Huge corporations
dominated the landscape and helped form foreign
policy. The period was also marked by economic
nationalism, as domestic manufacturers and
growers were confronted, for the first time,
with competitive goods from distant lands. As
the 19th century ended, Europe faced an arms
race and an ambitious German state. To counter
Germany's rise, states entered into secret
combinations of alliances in order to maintain a
balance of power which led, inevitably, to the
First World War.
The consequences of that war are well known.
It cost nearly $350 billion in 1918 dollars,
resulted in nearly 12 million war dead — over 20
percent of Oxford University men who served were
killed — and over 20 million people were
wounded. The aftermath of war was even worse
when more people died from epidemics than were
killed during the war. The Bolshevik revolution
gained a purchase it would never have achieved
without these horrendous conditions. The call
for new rules and a break with the past was
clarion. Unfortunately, policymakers were too
myopic in their vision when they established
those rules. They failed to look much beyond the
security dimensions of the problem and their
short-sightedness, especially to economic
issues, meant that the instruments and
institutions of peace (such as Treaty of
Versaille and League of Nations) either
exacerbated the problem or couldn't deal with
them. The international monetary system in the
mid-war years rested precariously on loans
(principally from the United States) instead of
on a system of extensive gold reserves and
securities. The result was repression,
depression, and the Second World War — the
conclusion of which also marked the end of
Globalization I. Once again the call for new
rules and a break with the past sounded forth.
This time policymakers (especially from the
United States and the United Kingdom) took a
much broader view of the international system
and they tried to firewall the present from the
past by replacing the League with the United
Nations (UN) and establishing an economic
system, devised at Bretton Woods, that would
help achieve economic stability and social
well-being in the pursuit of international peace
and security. One of the negative experiences
that spurred economic action was the instability
of exchange rates prior to the war. The
International Monetary Fund (IMF) was created as
the centerpiece of a new international monetary
system that was designed to guarantee an orderly
and reliable exchange of currencies in order to
promote the international flow of goods and
capital. Its sister institution, the
International (World) Bank for Reconstruction
and Development, was established to provide
financing and guarantees for reconstruction
following the war. Unfortunately, a large part
of the global economy (the communist bloc)
isolated itself from the economic system and
stalemated the United Nations. Those nations
that were positively influenced by the new rule
sets, underwent an enormous transformation and
they flourished. Those who fared worst under
this system lived in the seams between the east
and west. They literally fell between the
cracks. Nevertheless, the firewall, with its new
rule sets, basically worked and marked the
beginning of Globalization II.
A Taste of the
Future
Our first exposure to the possibility that
the world was again on the verge of changing its
rule sets came when we were asked to think about
the security consequences of Y2K if things went
badly. Since we were not computer experts, nor
air traffic control experts, nor electrical grid
experts, nor electronic financial transaction
experts, we realized we would have to take a
systemic approach to the question. We did this
by examining several alternative ways that the
scenario could play out and then populated a
scenario dynamics grid that looked at lingering
effects through four lenses (business,
government, networks, and society) over six
periods: 1) the initial mania created by the
possibility of a serious problem, 2) the
countdown to the actual event, 3) the onset of
the event, 4) the unfolding of the event's
aftermath, 4) the event's peak, and, finally, 5)
the event's exit. We asked experts to help fill
in the types of events we would expect to see in
each of the boxes created in this grid. Some of
the eventualities we contemplated were:
• Catastrophic terrorism targeting
Americans in highly symbolic venues (e.g.,
New York City, Washington, DC, Rome, and/or
Jerusalem).
• Opportunists taking advantage of chaos to
sow additional fear through acts of mischief
(likely millenarian).
• A major stock market disabled for days,
then market quakes around world, followed by
global recession.
• A significant rise in people buying guns
and private security.
• “Islanding” — wherein firms refused
customers certain basic services—especially
insurance.
• Firms stockpiling industrial inputs due to
anticipated delays at critical network nodes
— e.g., borders and ports.
• Leaders telling the public to stay calm
(no scapegoating) but accepting security
measures to keep peace just in case domestic
tranquility deteriorates (many feared loss
of liberties).
• Preventable wars, as leaders employed
desperate measures to show people they were
in control.
• US law enforcement and national security
agencies being called into action
simultaneously all over the country/world to
deal with fantastic scenarios (lots of
covert/special operations) with most
interventions targeted for backward states.
In the darkest scenarios, people started
acting differently and living by new rules in
order to protect themselves from the more
vicious effects of global turmoil. It didn't
happen, of course, but we were struck by
enormity of the possibilities and never once did
the specter of great power warfare rear its
head. The possibilities were so intriguing that
we teamed with the powerful, but then little
known, brokerage firm of Canter-Fitzgerald, and
began a series of workshops under the collective
title of NewRuleSets.Project. We had
conducted three extremely interesting meetings
(out of a proposed series of five) before the
World Trade Center and Canter-Fitzgerald's
headquarters were lost. We were convinced new
rule sets were emerging, but saw them evolving
naturally over time as opposed to being drafted
at a Dumbarton Oaks type of international forum.
Enough of the series was completed before 11
September that we, along with Hank Gaffney, a
colleague at the Center for Naval Analyses in
Alexandria, Virginia, had already begun thinking
about a new organizing principle for national
and international security that looked different
from the great power war model. The signs were
everywhere. More and more individuals were
calling for a break with the past as a result of
sea changes in the global economic and security
environments. Meetings of organizations that
represent the current rule sets (such as the IMF)
were plagued by increasingly angry protestors,
who used the tools and freedoms of globalization
to work against its spread.
These protestors remain a symptom of a deeper
trend that puzzles policymakers, who, like their
counterparts over the past 350 years, have used
interstate war as the organizing principle for
their institutions and plans. The depth of this
underlying reality was driven home on 11
September. The most oft-heard statement
following those attacks was, "This changes
everything." Donald Rumsfeld, the American
Secretary of Defense, decried the fact that
people didn't know how to adjust to this new
reality. "Almost every day in meetings," he
lamented, "I am confronted by people who come to
me with approaches and recommendations and
suggestions and requests that reflect a mindset
that is exactly the same as before September
11th. They understand that September 11th
occurred, but the power of this institution [the
Department of Defense] to continue ‘what is’ is
so great that we all need to be reminded and
indeed jarred to realize the urgency that
exists."
New asymmetries
If the old rules are not working and
everything has changed, who makes the new rules
and how are they going to come into effect? To
answer these questions, we like to start with a
framework proposed by Kenneth Waltz in his
seminal work, Man, the State, and War. He
looked at the sources of conflict using three
images. The first image was the individual. Wars
start because there are evil people in the
world. The second image was the state. Wars
start because there are aggressive nations that
desire what others have and are willing to take
it by force. The final image was the
international system. Wars start because there
is no Hobbesian leviathan to prevent them so
that man's natural aggression runs amok. What,
you may ask, has changed about that? For one
thing, nuclear weapons are a fact of life. Since
their first use at the end of the Second World
War, there have been no great power wars — a
period of over 50 years. We think that is likely
to remain the case. That does not mean we
believe the world will be a peaceful place. The
past 50 years have been some of the bloodiest in
history and there is no end of the bloodshed in
sight.
Looking at Waltz' three images we see western
militaries "frozen" in the nation-state image,
while much of the violence has migrated down to
the individual image. At the same time, much of
the competition and power has migrated up to the
system image. As a result, militaries are
fixated on rogue states and their weapons of
mass destruction programs or on the wistful hope
that a new near-peer will rise up to fill the
void left by the demise of the Warsaw Pact. That
militaries remained transfixed on the
nation-state image is not surprising. After all,
that is the image where money is legally
aggregated to buy the weapons of war and where
rules exist for its conduct. In the meantime, we
see economics racing ahead of politics,
technology dashing ahead of today's rules,
potential threats staying one step ahead of
realized enemies, and vulnerabilities remaining
allusive of robustness. This leaves an enormous
governance gap that tried-and-true, "stovepiped"
government organizations are incapable of
filling.
There has been much talk, at least in the
United States, about asymmetrical warfare. Until
11 September, these discussions were more often
around how a country like China might use
asymmetrical strategies to counter a frontal
U.S. military assault than about how America
could be attacked asymmetrically at home. The
Cassandra's did exist, but they were largely
ignored. Today Waltz' framework might be
populated a bit differently. The first image
would not be national leaders, but Thomas
Friedman's super-empowered individuals (SEI),
such as Usama bin Laden and those who carry out
his wishes. Jumping to the system image, we find
transnational networks, such as Al-Qaeda, that
can connect directly with super-empowered
individuals (bypassing nation-states) to wreak
havoc and create chaos. These transnational
networks wield sufficient clout that they can
trigger systemic stress. Militaries were lucky
that, at the beginning of the war on terrorism,
the link between the super-empowered individual
and the transnational network ran through a
nation-state sponsor (Afghanistan), making a
conventional response both swift and executable.
Afghanistan was relatively easy. Finding
individuals, such a bin Laden, proved more
difficult and required, at the individual level,
both special operations and extraordinary human
intelligence. Attacking the network at the
systemic level was even more challenging,
especially since there was no overarching
organizing principle to coordinate these
disparate activities. Once Afghanistan was under
control, selecting the next target was
problematic. President Bush went looking for
other nation-states (such as Iraq) to attack.
New battle lines
At a conference we participated in at the US
Naval War College, one presenter showed a
picture montage of Earth taken at night. The
striking feature about the photograph was that
the places drawing the world's attention, like
Afghanistan and North Korea, were mostly dark.
They were also the places that, in large
measure, were (or had been) fighting the
onslaught of globalization. From a western
perspective, if a country, group, or individual
is fighting against or resisting globalization,
that country, group, or individual is likely to
be a problem for the west. The obverse of that
foreign policy corollary is that if a country,
group, or individual is not resisting
globalization they should join the solution set.
Using that standard, if you look at a Mercator
projection of the world, solution set countries
lie in a ring along the edges. Potential problem
countries largely rest in the middle forming a
black hole of trouble for those embracing
globalization (see figure 1).
Another way of looking at how things have
changed is to examine the Cold War paradigm and
compare it to today's paradigm. You'll see that
it is a paradigm flipped on its head. The Cold
War world was bipolar and each side saw its
foreign policy as a zero sum game. It was
capitalism against communism — you were one or
the other. If communism gained the upper hand,
Americans feared they would lose their free
markets and with them their way of life. In
order to prevent this, the west firewalled its
market system (at the individual level) by
adopting a foreign policy aimed at containing
communism from spreading (at the system level).
Today America believes that globalization (at
the system level) will preserve free markets (at
the individual level) and thus maintain their
way of life. The threat that needs to be
isolated is the super-empowered individual. In
order to protect against this new threat,
America is trying to place a firewall between
globalization (at the system level) and those
who oppose it by containing them (at the
individual level).
Since nuclear weapons made great power
conflict (the current organizing principle)
unthinkable during the Cold War, America's
military strategy was one of deterrence. It
worked for many reasons. Among those reasons was
the fact that Marxism taught that communism had
time on its side. It was historically
inevitable, Marx claimed, that the world would
turn to communism. As a result, Soviet leaders
were unwilling to risk regime control by
engaging in a precipitous war that could send
them tumbling from power. What about today's
super-empowered individual? He has no regime to
risk and sees time running out for him to stop
the encroachments of globalization into his
world. How does deterrence work in this
instance? President George W. Bush immediately
reverted to the Cold War solution by trying to
deter nation-states ("you harbor terrorists, we
will come"). But how do you deter transnational
networks or super-empowered individuals? This is
one of the conundrums the globalized world now
faces.
Whither
globalization?
Although we believe that globalization is a
fait accompli for most of the world, its
end state is still unclear. We juxtapose two
pairs of end states about globalization on X-Y
axes to create four possible futures. The
vertical axis represents those participating in
globalization (or not) and how competition
between them could lead to conflict. At the top
we place "the best against the rest," meaning
that supporters of globalization join to contain
those who oppose it. At the bottom, we place
"the west against the rest," meaning that Asia
doesn't cooperate and each region pursues
globalization differently. The horizontal axis
addresses who is going to lead as the world
globalizes. On the left, we place "governance
gap continues," meaning that business and
technology advance faster than rules controlling
them. On the right, we place "new rule sets
emerge," meaning that the developed world agrees
about how globalization should proceed while
protecting local cultures and values (see figure
2).
If new rules don't emerge and the developed
world doesn't get together to challenge those
who oppose globalization, the world could remain
a very messy place in which to live. We call
this future "Globalization Traumatized." If the
world cooperates to advance globalization, but
fails to adopt a new rule set, economic growth
will proceed haltingly and governments will be
reactive rather than proactive. We call this
future "Globalization Compromised." Those are
the darker scenarios we posit. On the brighter
side, if developed nations agree on some broad
rules directing how globalization proceeds
(rules, for example, that would protect workers,
the environment, and tax bases), but fail to
cooperate when dealing with those opposing
globalization, they should expect to be plagued
by continual, large-scale protests. We call this
future "Globalization Stabilized." The best
scenario would see developed countries
cooperating to ensure that the world's economy
expands smoothly and justly. They agree on rules
that protect workers' rights, local cultures,
and the environment. They also cooperate to
contain disaffected groups and work to bring
opponents into the fold. We call this future
"Globalization Normalized."
New crises
Having laid out our case for a new organizing
principle and new rules, we examine the kinds of
conflicts or crises that we can expect in the
era of globalization. The great power war
paradigm assumed that conflict would be
proceeded by a period of tension, during which
parties would gather the dogs of war and then
unleash them in an intense combat to the finish.
We call these vertical scenarios. The classic
vertical scenario unfolds with lightning speed.
Opponents, allies, strategy and battle plans are
all known beforehand. Once the war begins, you
come as you are. The scenario develops so
quickly there is not time for evolution or
change. In the great power war scenario, time is
static because the world is frozen in place.
This scenario fits the America psyche. Americans
like things to happen quickly, believe a
solution is possible, and, they assume that if
they toss enough resources at a problem they
will triumph.
Some have argued that the Cold War
represented a new type of protracted conflict
"that would continue until one side or the other
was transformed. Either the United States would
cease to be a democracy or the Soviet Union
would cease to be a Leninist dictatorship. The
ideological divide was too deep and wide for any
lasting peace, and while tensions might grow or
diminish, these were tactical decisions dictated
by geopolitical convenience, not strategic
changes. Try as Western statesmen might to
bridge this divide with detente or, from the
Soviet side, with the ideological sleight of
hand called 'peaceful coexistence,' the conflict
would not end until one side or the other
triumphed." We argue that globalization takes
protracted conflict even further and, in fact,
will be the norm in the future. It will look
much different, however, than it did during the
Cold War. There will be no clear beginning or
end as it drags slowly on. The definition of who
the enemy is will likely change over time.
Allies will come and go; moreover, some former
"allies" may turn on you. Strategy for fighting
the conflict evolves over time to meet these
changing circumstances. The conflict is
characterized more by strikes than battles. As
the conflict lingers, definition of the
“problem” will be subject to debate. Unlike
great power warfare, the world goes on while the
situation seems frozen.
The dilemma with horizontal scenarios in the
era of globalization is that more than the
security dimension is involved. The more the
world becomes connected, the more that every
segment of human endeavor is drawn into the
fray. Globalization's growing density of network
connectivity is spawning a category of conflict
or war whose main attributes are the dynamics of
disruption vice destruction. As a result, a new
way for thinking about how to organize defenses
and responses to crises needs to be adopted. We
offer system perturbation as one possibility.
A new organizing
principle
We noted at the beginning of this paper that
a system perturbation is like a giant stone
dropped into a calm pond. The initial vertical
shock is spectacular, but the resulting
horizontal ripples have even wider spread and
longer lasting effects. Let's again examine 9/11
and its aftermath. In one morning, a series of
relatively simple terrorist acts set in motion a
system perturbation that has not only rearranged
our sense of national security, but redirected
our nation's foreign policy and recast states'
relationships with one another — all over the
world. Much of this change will be temporary,
but some changes will be permanent, generating
path-dependencies that nation-states will have
to deal with for decades to come. The key point
is this: the strategic environment is in flux
for some indeterminate period of time. That is
the essence of system perturbation — as it
unfolds, all bets are off. The old rule set
evaporates, the new one is not yet gelled. Both
direct and sympathetic ripples spread
horizontally from the perturbation. Let's pull
on a few of 9/11's threads from six different
areas: security, environment, technology,
culture, health, and economics.
· Security.
Security at airports was immediately
strengthened and screening procedures
tightened, with the inevitable result that
permanent additional taxes (or fees) will be
levied in order to pay for heightened
enforcement measures. People started asking
about the security of other forms of
transportation, including trains, buses,
trucking, and shipping. This led to
discussions of immigration and border
security. A crackdown on immigration had an
immediate effect on some industries,
including high tech industries and
agriculture that rely heavily on foreign
employees. Soon security issues were
affecting areas that had never been touched
directly by such challenges. For example,
Pakistan was critical in the operation
against Afghanistan and remained critical
for hunting down terrorists that fled into
its territory. By cooperating fully,
Pakistani leaders expected a quid pro quo,
but not on the security front, on the
economic front, by having the United States
lower its tariffs on Pakistani textile goods
— a move that was vigorously opposed by
textile manufacturers in America. Thus,
within months, the American textile industry
took the stage in the war on terrorism.
Increased reliance on Pakistani cooperation
also affected the calculus in the ongoing
tension between India and Pakistan.
Additionally, America found itself
developing bases in Central Asia, an area
the Iranians had hoped to bring into their
sphere of influence. As a result, Iran
opened its borders to fleeing Al-Qaeda
terrorists and covertly supported
anti-American forces in Afghanistan.
President Bush then felt free to link Iran,
Iraq, and North Korea into an "axis of
evil."
· Environment.
The Bush administration came to
office with an energy agenda that was
furthered by 9/11. As gas prices increased
sharply in the months succeeding 9/11,
people started to hint of a "third" oil
crisis. Calls for less reliance on Arab oil
reemerged. This led to President Bush
calling for more domestic oil drilling and
production. Environmentalists decried this
plan and mobilized into action, moving them
closer to the militant anti-globalization
camp than they already were. To soften the
criticism, hybrid cars were parked on the
White House lawn so that President Bush
could tout them as cars of the future. Thus,
environmentalists joined the fray.
· Technology.
Events of 9/11 spurred the production of
several new technologies, including
detection devices that could be used to find
explosive, biologic, and radioactive
material. It also spurred the transformation
of the military and the increased use of
unmanned vehicles in combat. Exactly where
the technology thread will lead is unclear,
but surely technologies that can be both
helpful and misused will emerge. Civil
libertarians are already protesting
technologies that can automatically monitor,
scan, and identify individuals, whether they
are trying to board a plane or simply
walking down the street.
· Culture.
Analysts who had written off Samuel
Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations"
arguments began to reexamine them. The
longer the strikes continued against
Afghanistan and the more vituperative the
language used against Iraq, the more uneasy
the Arab world grew. Xenophobia increased.
Opponents of globalization found themselves
in an uncomfortable alliance with bin
Laden's supporters; agreeing with some of
his aims, but stopping short of supporting
all of his tactics. As Muslim frustration
and disbelief increased as a result of the
tension, a door was opened for some of the
deadliest attacks ever carried out against
Israel. Martyrdom became a cause célčbre
among young, disaffected Muslims. In the
west, this only reinforced a negative
stereotype about the Arab world and Islam.
· Health.
Fellow travelers used the opportunity
presented by 9/11 to send anthrax in the
mail and raise fears about widespread
bioterrorism. One result was an outcry for
more ciprofloxacin, but Bayer, a German
pharmaceutical company, held the patent on
the medication and they couldn’t manufacture
the required amounts quickly enough. A call
was raised in many quarters, both public and
private, demanding that US companies ignore
the patent and make the drug. Advocates for
African AIDS victims had been making the
same demand about drugs, including
ciprofloxacin, used to fight that deadly
malady. When Bayer cut a deal with the
United States, it also helped reduce the
cost and increase the production of AIDS
drugs for use in Africa. Security was now
tied directly to suffering populations in
the underdeveloped world.
· Economics.
The immediate effect of 9/11 on the stock
market was stunning, but the effect on the
travel and leisure industries, were greater.
People stopped flying. Hotels emptied.
Amusement parks didn't seem quite as
amusing. This was not just an American
phenomenon, it occurred worldwide, and it
came at a time when the world was already
slipping into a recession. Unemployment
grew. Foreign direct investment dried up.
Government surpluses evaporated and deficits
returned. Only the stocks of the military
industrial complex saw a silver lining. To
stimulate the US economy, President Bush
returned the government to deficit spending,
risking the downstream viability of social
security and medicare — issues close to the
heart of an aging American population.
As you can see, the tendrils of 9/11 expanded
outward in every direction changing lives,
creating havoc, and demanding a response.
Governments realized that stovepiped approaches
to governance were no longer workable and they
started to forge networks between previously
unconnected departments and even proposed the
creation of a new department. We have only begun
to see the enormous changes that will be wrought
as a result of the events on 11 September. So
how does system perturbation theory help us get
our arms around all of these problems and allow
us to use it as a new organizing principle?
System
perturbation theory
What do we mean when we talk about system
perturbation? The following is our working
definition:
• An international security order thrown
into a state of confusion by a perversely
shocking development somewhere in the
increasingly interconnected global economy.
• This “vertical” shock generates an
outflow of “horizontal” waves whose
cascading effects cross sectoral boundaries
(which may not dampen but amplify the waves)
to the point where nearly all rule sets are
disturbed, knocked out of equilibrium,
questioned, or intrinsically rearranged.
• This fluxing of the system is
temporary, but path dependent and chaotic.
End states encompass the return of old
rules, the rise of entirely new rule sets,
and/or the merging of old and new.
• The potential for conflict is maximized
when divergent rule sets are forced into
collisions.
In the past, as we have noted, great power
war has led to changes in the international
order. Under economic globalization, which
generates an increasingly denser medium for
shock wave transmission, great power war becomes
less likely the cause and more likely one
possible effect of a system perturbation. If
true, then system perturbation, not great power
war, needs to be the organizing principle
governments use to build their strategies and
field their resources since it covers a greater
number of adverse situations. Under this new
arrangement, we ask, "Who makes the rules?" For
the US Department of Defense, we developed a
decision tree that helped explain why this was
such an important question for them (see figure
3).
The higher up the tree you go the greater the
degree of transformation required. First we ask
if 9/11 represented a new form of crisis (that
is, was it "existence proof" for system
perturbation theory)? If it was not, then the
Department of Defense probably requires only
slight modification. If 9/11 does represent a
new kind of crisis, then simply modifying a few
organizations might be an insufficient
transformation. If the kind of crisis one must
get involved in has changed, does it mean the
rules of the game have changed? Does system
perturbation become the new ordering principle
for the Department of Defense? If a new ordering
principle is not required, then the Department
of Defense can adequately respond to the new
kind of crisis by adapting planned to or
developing systems for new doctrine. It must be
willing to give up some of old product lines in
order to make room for new ones. If a new
ordering principle is required, we wonder who
establishes the rules for the game. Is it the
new super-empowered individuals? Transnational
networks? If not, and states continue to make
the rules, the Department of Defense must
understand what the new rules are and reposition
themselves to succeed under them. This would
probably require a major organizational
transformation as well as a major technological
change. If the newcomers do make the rules, then
the Department of Defense may be in the wrong
business.
The philosophy behind asymmetrical warfare
has always been to do things that render major
segments of your opponent's forces useless. What
good did America's mighty military do to deter
the terrorists who attacked the World Trade
Center? What good were the Army's heavy forces
in Afghanistan, or the Air Force's bombers
before there were nearby bases, or the bulk of
the Navy's ships that floated hundreds of miles
from a landlocked country? What good are
armaments at all against cyber attacks? Or
biological attacks? That doesn't make military
power irrelevant in every case, but more and
more people now realize that military power is
not relevant in every case either. The resources
required to combat the latter two eventualities
are probably not resident in the military at
all, nor should they be. Yet having tools that
can be used effectively in every circumstance is
critical. That is why a new organizing principle
is essential — so that the disparate parts that
need to coordinate their efforts have a
framework for doing so.
What is to be done?
As we think narrowly about US security, we
see the following changes. There will be a
merging of national and personal security
issues. The antiseptic posse comitas
approach of the past will find the lines between
military action and law enforcement being
blurred. Private security agencies will likely
come under closer scrutiny and heavier
regulation — but that sector of society will
inevitably grow. Police forces will become
paramilitary. American defense policy, which has
supported a US foreign policy that prefers
fighting "over there," will have to balance
"home" and "away" responsibilities even as the
defense dollar is squeezed by requirements of an
aging population and a cry for more homeland
security provided by non-defense agencies.
On the battlefield, nations cooperating to
contain super-empowered individuals and
transnational networks will find conflict
defined increasingly by a values-based response
to globalization; hence, the rise of
values-based targeting. The threats will
primarily be non-state, non-nodal, asymmetric
and without restrictions and both sides will
wage wars of “perversity.” Doing things that
reinforce stereotypes and undermine sustainable
peace — often causing conflicts to be needlessly
protracted by misidentifying the real threats.
Militaries will have to transform dramatically,
in terms of equipment, concepts of operation,
and strategy. The old industrial age model will
not work because battlefield density no longer
matters. Intelligence will become the most
critical resource a military can have. Massing
of weapons will yield to directed energy weapons
and the military will have to answer all the
ethical questions that will arise from their
use. Armed reconnaissance units will be the norm
as stealth helps define lethality. Shooters will
be directly coupled to sensors in a new way.
Some battlefields may be completely autonomous
and the protection of innocents will raise
difficult challenges. Games of hide and seek
will replace classic battlefield engagements.
Prosecution of some conflicts will be equal
parts military action, economic sanction, and
law enforcement. Turf battles over who is in
charge will undoubtedly rage.
If system perturbation theory has any
relevance beyond being an ethereal model of a
complex world, then we need to identify who or
what the trigger agents are that can "drop the
big rocks in the pond," what media they will
use, how the shockwaves will be transmitted,
what connections exist between the initial shock
and the horizontal scenarios, what barriers can
be erected to stop the spread of adverse
effects, and what the consequences are of both
the threat and the cure. We need to understand
what capabilities are needed for both system
perturbations and great power war, and which are
distinct to system perturbation. Some of the
tools we may need may not yet exist. We suspect
that research and development in this area will
be critical. We need to continue to identify
essential rule sets and understand who is making
particular rules along with who is following
them and who is not. Governments, especially the
US Government, needs to forge new links across
departments and agencies and possibly needs a
reorganization of major portions of the
bureaucracy. Because system perturbation implies
that the international system is affected, some
functions are probably beyond the ken of
national governments and transnational solutions
will have to be worked out. New links with
business must be established, because
globalization is primarily an economic
phenomenon. The dilemma for governments is that
some deterrence and consequence management
resources may be beyond their political reach
and rest with actors tied to no nation-state. As
the theory is explored and refined, we may find
new venues and new alliances that need to be
established in addition to current ones such as
the United Nations and Interpol.
Right now we are good only at tracing the
dynamics of a system perturbation after they
happen, much like a detective recreating a crime
scene during an investigation. What we need to
understand better is who or what are the agents
that can trigger system perturbations. What
devices can they use? How fast will the effects
of the perturbation spread as globalization
creates a denser medium through which such
effects can flow? What forms of transmission
will these effects assume? Are there naturally
occurring breakers within the globalization
system? We need to understand the difference
between the paths of least resistance (in
effect, the usual suspects for transmission) and
the paths of greatest resistance (what is most
fit in this landscape to resist shockwaves).
Where we find naturally occurring breaks, we
need to identify, bolster, and exploit them.
This nascent theory currently raises more
questions than it answers. But we believe it
will help governments think more broadly about
national security by forcing them to forge new
connections between politics, diplomacy,
economics, culture, and security. Done
correctly, international relationships will be
strengthened and possibilities of great power
wars reduced. The venues required to counter
super-empowered individuals and transnational
networks will make international relations more
transparent, thus enhancing trust.
1 John A. Garraty and Peter Gay, eds.,
The
Columbia History of World (New York: Harper
& Row, 1972), p. 992.
2 Bruno Simma, ed.,
The Charter of the United
Nations: A Commentary (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1995), p. 810. Since 1971 and
the beginning of free floating rates of
exchange, the Fund "ensures that floating is
orderly and that the international transfer of
payments is as free as possible, and it provides
the money used for balancing deficits in the
balance of payments. This has caused the Fund to
be one of the most important actors in the
management of the international debt crisis."
(ibid.)
3 Ibid., p. 811. "Today it focuses on financing
development projects, especially in the field of
infrastructure." (ibid.) The World Bank has two
affiliate organizations, The International
Finance Corporation (IFC) and the International
Development Association (IDA).
4 Remarks during a 31 January 2002 press
conference.
5 Robert Strausz-Hupe, "The New Protracted
Conflict,"
Orbis, Spring 2002.
