National Defense Magazine

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Washington Pulse

October 2003

by Geoff S. Fein

A defense contractor just returned from Kabul reports that U.S. military personnel there are “so bored that they are going out of their minds.” Commanders won’t let their troops go out on the town under any circumstances, he said. Even when they are off duty, they can’t go to the movies, go shopping or even see the historic sights.

Commanders argue that the situation in Afghanistan is still far too dangerous for individual GIs to be wandering around on their own in Kabul. But this contractor disagrees.

“I think it’s bad for morale,” he said. “I realize there’s a force protection issue, but there ought to be some way for troops to let off steam. Even during the Vietnam War, U.S. military personnel weren’t this restricted,” he said.

Allowing GIs to mix with the local population might even help improve the security situation, the contractor suggested. In Vietnam, he said, friendly Vietnamese would sometimes warn individual servicemen of an impending attack.

New Meaning for ‘OODA Loop’.

Military intellectuals no doubt are familiar with the term “OODA loop,” coined by the legendary U.S. Air Force Col. John R. Boyd, who helped design the F-16 fighter in the 1970s.

OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) is a catchphrase for “getting inside the adversary’s decision cycle.” Operating inside the enemy’s OODA loop theoretically is what makes it possible to outmaneuver military foes.

During Operation Iraqi Freedom, British commanders—known for their sharp wit—came up with an updated definition of the OODA loop: “Observe, Overreact, Destroy and Apologize,” according to a senior U.S. naval aviator who participated in the war planning.

“The Brits were fun to work with in the CAOC,” he said.

The CAOC is the Combined Air Operations Center, the war-planning hub for all air operations during the conflict.

U.S. Facing Wide-Ranging Threats

Uneven economies, demographics and bad governance combined with the proliferation of missiles, weapons of mass destruction and large regional armies pose a significant challenge to the United States, said Kenneth Knight, chief of the defense warning office for the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Knight, speaking at a missile defense conference, said that the United States is seen by its adversaries as the source of trouble in the world.

“We are the center of gravity in this emerging world,” he said.

However, those views could change if the U.S. is successful in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said.

“Maybe [it will shake] future perceptions,” said Knight.

Adversaries are becoming adept at coping with U.S. military power. They are learning how to exploit public opinion as well as fighting in asymmetrical ways—deploying in complex terrain and avoiding decisive engagements, he added.

Even outer space, which the United States has controlled, may soon be exploited by future enemies.

“Any potential adversary will have access [to space] through international consortia,” Knight said.

Most of the regions and conflicts that America needs to be concerned about are in the Middle East, including Iraq (a continued terrorist threat), the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iran, Pakistan and internal problems in Afghanistan. Other nations of concern include North Korea, Columbia, Venezuela, and the ongoing conflict between India and Pakistan, said Knight.

Knight is also concerned with development of and acquisition of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles and WMDs by countries around the world. For example, China is intent on expanding its strategic capabilities, he said.

“What does China hope to get out of its nuclear capabilities? That’s a concern to me,” he said.

Russia, which has half the military strength of its Cold War days, still retains an effective deterrent—its nuclear capability, Knight said. “But will [Russia] rely on nukes with its military in disarray?”

Radical Islam Will Not Become ‘Governing Ideology’

Islamic extremism does not pose the same danger to the Western World as the communist and fascist ideologies of the 20th century did, according to Michael Mandelbaum, a New York Times best-selling author.

“This ideology does not have the global appeal as the great ideological opponents of liberalism,” Mandelbaum said at an Office of Naval Research conference. “These ideas have no chance of taking over the power of the country, which is the necessary condition for opposing liberalism in a serious way. These ideas, such as they are, already have been tried and failed,” namely in Afghanistan and Iran, he said.

Radical Muslim ideas, he said, are doing better in some parts of the Arab world than in others. “In the religious hearts of the Islamic world, or Arab world, there are no democracies, and there are no market economies,” he said. In those countries, the conflict is not with America or the Western world, but between the moderates—“those who want Islam to be a thriving religion compatible with the modern world”—and the extremists, said Mandelbaum.

“The extremists are noisy, and they clearly have sympathizers, but even that has led us to think that there is almost no country that has radical Islam as its governing ideology,” he said.

The United States historically has undertaken the responsibility of defending the Western world against threats to liberal ideas, he noted. “By functioning as a democracy and as a free market economy ourselves, and more importantly, by defending other democracies and serving as the hub of a working thriving global economy, we help to keep that powerful example before the world,” he said. “I believe it is that example which not only brought down communism, but which is drawing the world towards these ideas.”

He said the United States pays too much attention to “the outsiders, the rebels and the punks, [who] are noisy and dangerous.” In his opinion, the vast majority of the world is willing to join “the international community of which we are a part.”

For example, Turkey is a democracy and a working free market, he said. “That should remind us that the Islamic world is not monolithic.”