to use force more precisely and swiftly to prevent the rising threats of the twenty-first century from upending the international order.
Critics worry that the spread of these new weapons will lower the barriers to war. If launching a drone or activating a cyber weapon becomes too cheap and easy, they warn, nations will resort to force far more readily than today. But this earlier, more precise use of force could prevent threats from metastasizing into far worse dangers. It could even have a salutary effect in further dampening the risks of great power war. As we will show, war often breaks out between nations because they cannot overcome the informational and commitment obstacles to bargaining. Because of the anarchic state of the world, nations in a dispute cannot gather credible information about the capabilities and desires of their rivals and they cannot trust them to keep their promises. Cyber and robotic weapons give nations not only greater ability to coerce each other, but also more means to communicate their intentions in war and their reliability in peace. With these weapons available, we should see nations settle more disputes by negotiation, rather than by escalation.
We do not mean to argue that more advanced technologies will now transform the battlefield and ensure that future conflicts will always be won by the side with the better weapons. In the early twentieth century, for example, air-power enthusiasts argued that bombing could replace ground assaults. Colonial powers used air attacks in the interwar period, notably the British in Iraq and Spanish forces in Morocco. But command of the air did not ensure French victory in Algeria in the 1950s, nor Soviet victory against Afghan guerrillas in the 1980s. War is unpredictable because, in the end, it is a contest between human hearts and brains, not a duel of gadgets. The side with the more advanced weapons may not be the side with the most commitment in a long struggle.
This chapter proceeds in three parts. Part I will describe the new security challenges of the twenty-first century. It will explain that the nature of these civil wars, rogue states, and terrorist groups requires more widespread, albeit less destructive, uses of force to police them. Part II will explore how new weapons technologies, and a modern understanding of the tactics and strategy to take advantage of them, can lead to less rather than more conflict between the major powers. Part III will criticize the current rules of the U.N. Charter, which might deter states from using new weapons to confront these new threats. While the twentieth century’s threats are receding, the instability and disorder of the twenty-first may require the great powers to use force more often, not less.
New Security Challenges for the Twenty-First Century
In August of 2013, the White House acknowledged clear evidence that the Syrian army had used chemical weapons, despite firm warnings from President Barack Obama against using such munitions.6 The White House tried to mobilize support for retaliatory military action by western countries, including France and Great Britain. In the ensuing debate, some critics warned against costly entanglement in the ongoing civil war in Syria. Others worried that outside intervention might allow rebel forces to install a dangerous Islamist government. Some believed that western strikes might escalate the conflict and spread the fighting beyond Syria to neighboring countries, such as Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq, and Israel.
Almost no one opposed retaliatory air strikes on the grounds that intervention, in itself, would run contrary to international norms. The Chemical Weapons Convention prohibits the production, stockpiling, and use of chemical weapons, such as sarin and VX nerve gas.7 But it does not authorize the use of force against violators; it only empowers states to refer a situation to the U.N. Security Council. In any case, Syria never signed the CWC. The U.N. Charter empowers the Security Council to authorize the use of force to protect against threats to international peace and security, for which the Syrian civil war or the use of chemical weapons might qualify. Despite pressure from the United States, Britain, and France, however, the Security Council could not act because of the vetoes of Russia and China.8
It was hard to see the Obama administration’s proposal as anything other than “punishment.” The White House denied that intervention would aim at influencing the outcome of the civil war.9 The announced goal was to “impose a price” for using such terrible weapons, or, in more direct terms, to “punish” the Assad regime. The administration did not propose air strikes to destroy the chemical weapons stockpiles or their production facilities. The aim was simply to impose some “cost” elsewhere to deter future use of the weapons. Critics warned that the tactic would prove ineffective or have unacceptable side effects, but not that it was, in itself, improper.10 The Obama administration finally embraced an alternate policy, an agreement with the Syrian and Russian governments for the internationally supervised removal of the chemical weapons.11 Administration spokesmen insisted, however, that this outcome had only been possible because it had previously threatened Syria with punitive strikes.12
The Obama administration’s approach to Syria predictably failed. Syria continued its brutal civil war that has killed an estimated 470,000 people, most of them civilians.13 The Assad regime continues to use chemical weapons, though perhaps not in the amounts that it would have without the agreement. The remaining Syrian population that could flee has left the country. According to some estimates, more than four million Syrians have become refugees, destabilizing the region and pressuring even NATO allies.14 In the power vacuum left by withdrawing U.S. forces in Iraq, al-Qaeda transformed into ISIS and seized large swaths of territory in both countries. ISIS has imposed a draconian version of Sharia law on the people under its control and created a safe haven where it can train new fighters from around the world. Along with the United States, Turkey has declared that the Assad regime must go and has crossed the border in force to root out ISIS. Meanwhile, Russia and Iran have sent unconventional fighters, regular troops, and modern air power to prop up the Assad regime.
The Syrian civil war illustrates the threats to peace in the twenty-first century, which now come less from great power war and more from rogue nations, terrorist groups, and failing states. Though the threat of general war has receded, these new challenges may demand that states use force more often, but at lower levels of intensity. Civil wars and humanitarian crises, however, may deter intervention because of the possibility of high casualties in urban environments. Terrorists and guerrillas refuse to follow the laws of war by refusing to distinguish themselves from civilians, hiding among them, and launching terror attacks on them. WMD and rogue nations present further difficulties because of the covert nature of their weapons programs and their disregard for the lives of their own civilians. Left to fester, these challenges can grow into serious threats to international stability, whether from terrorist attacks, the deaths of thousands of civilians, or authoritarian regimes armed with nuclear weapons. New technologies can help the great powers address these threats by applying force with greater precision at less cost.
Preemption and WMD Threats
Weapons of mass destruction pose new challenges. Widespread destruction has always been a possibility in war. In ancient times, the civilized states of Greece and Rome sometimes massacred or deported all the inhabitants of an enemy city. But before the twentieth century, the possibility for casualties had not reached millions from a single strike. A hostile army also had to invade enemy territory before it could slay and destroy. Now nuclear weapons can wreak devastation in the first minutes of conflict and, if widely used, destroy most human life on earth. Even the detonation of a single nuclear weapon in the United States could kill vast numbers of people and severely disrupt our society. Nations have an interest in keeping these most destructive weapons out of the hands of the most reckless leaders, especially those who might use them impulsively or share them with terrorists.
It is not unusual for a sudden change in arms to generate a strategic threat. In such circumstances, western leaders once thought that they could act preemptively before such a threat had matured, even before an attack was “imminent.” In 1807, for example, Great Britain feared that Denmark and Norway would transfer their fleets to France, which would have allowed France to challenge the Royal Navy’s control of the seas. Instead, after the Danes refused to hand their fleet over to the British, a British
